Was Boeing in Ukraine? Inconsistencies with facts. Experts called a terrorist attack a possible cause of the crash of the Indonesian Boeing. The landing turned out to be too soft.

Illustration copyright AFP Image caption The first flight of the C919 became a national event in China

The first medium-haul airliner C919 made its first flight in China. It is being built primarily for the domestic market, but potentially this aircraft could also enter the international market.

The first flight of the Chinese airliner C919 was broadcast live on national television. This is truly a big event - the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), created just nine years ago, introduced the first medium-haul airliner.

The first flight lasted one hour and nineteen minutes. While in the air, the plane did not retract its landing gear - a common practice for such flights.

The C919 is expected to make its first flight with passengers in 2020. But the project has been behind schedule from the very beginning.

The C919 is assembled in China, but using a lot of imported technology - for example, engines from the French-American manufacturer CFM.

He has more than four thousand hours of test and certification flights ahead, which will involve six aircraft.

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The first commercial carrier to use the C919 will be China Eastern Airlines, but the order book, according to manufacturers, has already exceeded 500 aircraft for 23 airlines, mostly Chinese. True, we are talking mainly about declarations of intent; COMAC has less than 100 firm orders.

Initially, COMAC expected to deliver more than two thousand aircraft within 20 years.

COMAC is a newcomer to the aviation market. C919 is the corporation's second airliner. The first - the regional ARJ21 - made its first commercial flight in 2016, almost eight years after its first flight, but has not yet become widespread.

On the one hand, this company has no reputation; there are almost no statistics on the reliability and practical efficiency of its aircraft.

On the other hand, COMAC intends to supply airliners primarily to the large domestic market, in which the state-owned company cannot but feel more confident.

One among one's own

This market should not be underestimated. According to estimates from the largest aviation companies, the volume of the domestic Chinese aviation market in the next 20 years will amount to more than 6 thousand units, the vast majority of which are medium-haul aircraft such as the C919.

In 20 years, the Chinese market is projected to become the largest in the world.

To what extent can the factor of “own” aircraft on the domestic market help in its promotion? Will the government be able to use administrative resources, forcing national carriers to buy aircraft from COMAC?

Columnist for Vzlet magazine Alexander Velovich believes that the Chinese authorities will no doubt help the state corporation, but this airliner will help them when purchasing foreign aircraft. The Chinese market is so big that it can accommodate everyone.

“Suppose some Chinese company is negotiating the purchase of a certain number of aircraft. It is conducting them in parallel with both Boeing and Airbus, bargaining for the most favorable conditions from both. Now there is a third factor intervenes. If neither Boeing nor Airbus give us good conditions, then we will buy our own,” Velovich told the BBC Russian Service.

Another expert, senior researcher at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics Vasily Kashin, believes that China will not support the production and promotion of the aircraft unless it demonstrates at least moderately good performance.

“If, based on the results of the tests, it is clear that something is not emerging there, that it demonstrates low reliability indicators, or low economic indicators, then, of course, the political resource will not be used,” Kashin told the BBC. “If If it turns out that this is a serviceable aircraft, even if not a great one, then we can be sure that it will have a significant market in China."

According to Kashin, the state has instruments of influence - the overwhelming number of Chinese airlines are state-owned, and in any case, they are all very dependent on the state regulator.

New player in the global market?

The reputation of a manufacturer of reliable aircraft in the global market plays a very important role, and this is something that COMAC is currently missing.

The strategy of promoting the C919 first on the domestic market, which, on the one hand, is large, and on the other hand, it can enlist government support, will lead to the fact that over time, if the aircraft turns out to be truly reliable and economical, positive statistics will allow COMAC to enter and to the international market.

To do this, China will need to create a technical support network for the aircraft in the places where it will fly, as well as develop financial mechanisms to support buyers.

According to Velovich, the example of the Brazilian company Embraer, which in just a few decades was able to become one of the world's largest aircraft manufacturers, shows that a competent marketing policy can allow China to make the same journey.

Kashin believes that the aircraft will have good chances in regional markets immediately after its release.

“After mass production of the C919 begins and it goes to Chinese companies, they will most likely promote it. First, to a number of countries in Southeast Asia and Africa, where they have good positions,” the expert said. “If it becomes clear, that this is a good plane, they will be able to break into new markets."

Russian analogue

In parallel with the Chinese airliner, Russia is creating a similar medium-range passenger aircraft, the MS-21.

The first aircraft was assembled at the end of April 2017, the first flight was originally scheduled for December 2016, but then it was postponed and it is scheduled to take off at the end of May.

MS-21 manufacturer Irkut Corporation says it has an order book of 285 aircraft, but only 175 of them are solid.

Just like in China, the first customer of the Russian airliner will be the state-owned company Aeroflot.

They say that the first impression is the most correct. Usually they say this about people, but it can also be applied to various kinds of events. The formula is far from universal, but it works from time to time.

So, as for the Boeing - the same MH-17, innocently shot down in the skies of Donbass...

I don’t know about you, but after watching the reports from the scene of the Boeing crash, the first question that came to my mind was:

Isn't this a production?

Some strange corpses, a stack of invalid passports, a strange coincidence between the Boeing and another airliner of the same company that disappeared in March over the Pacific Ocean. And a whole series of other oddities.

But then everyone, including Russian officials, somehow very amicably began to argue about who shot down the plane and with what. There were witnesses who saw it fall, someone saw another plane next to the Boeing, someone suggested that it was a Ukrainian fighter, someone said that there were even two fighters, the Ministry of Defense also reported that it was recorded on radar another plane, for some reason they announced that it was a Su-25...

And off we go. Everyone began to heatedly argue whether the Su-25 could rise to a height of 10 kilometers, and if it could not, then whose BUK fired - Russian or Ukrainian.

And now, a year has passed. The commission did not present final conclusions, only transparently hinted that it was most likely shot down by a BUK air defense missile. This is not certain, but most likely. More than less likely.

Interested parties even attempted to create a tribunal. The case itself is unique; tribunals have never been created in cases of plane crashes. And in general, one might think that the tribunal will be able to find out what the commission was unable to find out in a year. However, Russia predictably abandoned the idea of ​​a tribunal by placing one big veto on it.

However, the question remained open - who shot down the plane?

And here again the question that arose in me on the day of the disaster:

Was there a Boeing?

In this place, especially impressionable people should raise a terrible howl on the topic, how can one doubt - children died there, women, civilians were brutally destroyed by the Kremlin's mercenaries, they could still live and live if the Russian terrorist had not fired his anti-aircraft missile ...

But let's approach the question this way:

If the passengers of flight MH-17 really died, they will not be brought back, but what if not?

Have you seen the funeral of passengers? All three hundred?
I didn't see it. And most likely you too.

Therefore, let's consider the version that they survived.

But in this case, what kind of plane fell into the fields of Donbass?

The plane in the fields of Donbass is a Boeing. Malaysian Boeing. The same one that disappeared in March last year. That is, it was stolen.

However, you can even do without hijacking a Malaysian Boeing. It can be assumed that it crashed and sank somewhere in the ocean, and a copy fell in the Donbass. Whose Boeing Corporation is it? American. Who prevented the Americans from making a copy of the missing Boeing? Nobody.

But in the “fake Boeing” version, it is not so important whether it was the missing original or a copy of it. It is important that this was not a real MH-17 flight, but a fake one.

How was the production organized?

I've come across two versions:

1. Autopilot. The plane was flying on autopilot, there were corpses inside, and in the right place the liner exploded. The version, of course, looks a little wild - a plane with corpses. However, this is not the weakest thing about her. The weakest thing is witnesses who can record both the departure of a strange flight and the explosion of the plane in the air. Sending a flight with corpses from a European airport so that it is not recorded anywhere is not the easiest or most reliable thing. And it is absolutely impossible to exclude witnesses who see a passenger airliner exploding and crashing in the sky, without any BUKs or fighters. And it is unknown how the debris with the corpses will fall. It is unknown who will find them. Then collect evidence throughout Donbass.

2. Transport. A certain transport plane that dropped debris and corpses in the right place. It also sounds wild, although it is technically easier to do. True, no transport aircraft can deliver the entire mass of the Boeing 777, the mass is too large, but there is no need to deliver it entirely. About 30 tons of debris were collected from the Boeing crash site. It could have been delivered. And sending a transport plane was much easier. But! Witnesses! It is impossible to exclude witnesses who will see a plane fly by and drop debris from another plane. Again, debris with corpses may fall unsuccessfully. Someone else will find something suspicious.

In general, both versions are quite dubious.

So what happens, there was a Boeing after all? Was it and was it shot down?

Was. But he was not shot down. It was simply brought in in the form of debris and laid out at the place where the crash was later announced.

Impossible? Why?

The version with debris brought by land transport explains the main oddity - the absence of deep craters and holes from a heavy airliner that fell from a great height.

All the debris, including the massive engines (7 tons each, the most massive in the world) lies on the surface. Look at photographs of other plane crashes - everywhere, except for the crash directly on takeoff/landing, there are holes left, engines and landing gear go deep into the ground, sometimes they collapse entirely, pierce asphalt and concrete, and if the plane crashes into a building, entire floors are collapsed.

Remember the World Trade Center - they claim that the hijacked planes pierced steel beams (there were steel support beams not only inside, but also outside the WTC towers).

Look at the photographs where cranes fall on houses - entire apartments are destroyed, reinforced concrete slabs fall through, although the crane falls from a height of 20-40 meters (the highest point), and the Boeing 777 fell from a height of about 10 kilometers.

For those who remember a little physics, calculate the impact energy of an engine weighing 7 tons falling from a height of 10 kilometers. It's like a 7-ton cannonball.

But all this lies on the surface of the earth in Donbass.
Not even on concrete, but just on the ground. Summer in the field.

The landing was somehow too soft.

And don't tell me that Boeing planned because of its outstanding flight characteristics. If he planned it so carefully that even the landing gear did not go deep into the ground, then why did it fall apart in the first place? It would stand like new, and the passengers would get off with a slight fright.

The version with “imported” debris also explains another oddity - the corpses of passengers, personal belongings and passports that do not look burnt at all, even those that lie among the main debris. And green grass.

Once again we recall the World Trade Center - it was stated that the fire from the planes that hit the buildings was so strong that it melted the load-bearing structures of the buildings, several thousand tons of steel along the entire height. And here are light-colored corpses, white things, whole passports. And green grass.

And the engines, as some have noted, are smaller than what a Boeing 777 should have. Now, if the wreckage was brought in by truck, then this is quite understandable, because the real Boeing 777 engine is too large and heavy for an ordinary truck. That's why they brought less.

And the Boeing crash sites look more like garbage dumps than crash sites.

Another indirect evidence in favor of the “imported” version is that most of the wreckage lies not far from the road. This in itself is not proof, but it is an interesting fact. The likelihood that the Boeing would fall near the road, and even along it, is in itself very small.

You may ask: how was it possible to bring so much debris and scatter it without anyone noticing?

I’ll ask a counter question: how was the BUK supposed to shoot so that no one could hear or see it?

The BUK shot should have been heard and seen by everyone within a radius of several kilometers. And the trucks that dump something near the poultry farm - who will pay attention to them? For example, do you run to every truck that, somewhere a kilometer away from you, brings something and dumps it in the field? Do you check all the trucks passing by to see what they are carrying?

Some trucks arrived, perhaps at night, perhaps early in the morning, not far from the poultry farm, and dumped something. Well, someone saw it, yes. But are there many such witnesses?

As for the plane or even two that were seen in the sky, the question is also how many witnesses there were and what they saw.

Maybe they saw the “drying ground” that the militia actually shot down that day. Maybe they saw a real MH-17, which flew safely on its route, and then they noticed the fire, ran to the scene and decided that the same plane that they saw in the sky had crashed.

They also say that it was cloudy then, in which case no one should have seen any planes at an altitude of 10 kilometers at all.

The case in the practice of investigating plane crashes is simply out of the ordinary. Usually the investigation uses everything that was collected at the crash site, but here it was a failure. Suddenly!

Remember at the same time how slowly, as if reluctantly, the commission began to work. As if they obviously didn’t need to collect anything. And this fits perfectly with the “foundling” version. If the commission knew that the disaster was “false,” and it had to be aware of this in order to conduct an investigation in accordance with the requirements of the directors of the play, then why do they need the wreckage at all? The less the better, it will be easier to fabricate the desired conclusion.

The less debris there is, the more room for creativity to tailor the result. Therefore, even those few fragments that were scattered at the site of the “disaster” were divided in half and only part was removed.

For the same reason, negotiations between the crew and the dispatcher are either posted or not. What to post if the real MH-17 successfully continued its flight?

But what then to do with the results of the commission, which made a preliminary conclusion that the Boeing was shot down by a BUK air defense missile system?

No way. The commission was tasked with drawing up the necessary conclusion - and it did. We worked on the “linden tree” for a long time, and finally built it.

The duration of the investigation also fits perfectly with the “foundling” version. They delayed it for two reasons. Firstly, it took time to adjust the results and process the debris so that at least something could be presented as evidence of the developed version. Secondly, lying after a long time is very convenient. The more time has passed, the more the details have been forgotten, the less the risk that the lie will catch the eye.

And the BUK that shot at the Boeing could not be found for the same reason - it simply did not exist. Neither Ukrainian nor Russian. All that was found was a couple of photographs of a fuzzy trace over Torez, which could be either a fake or the trace of a salvo at a completely different target, perhaps not even a BUK, but something completely different.

It turns out that for a whole year we were looking for BUK and “drying”, which were not there at all. It wasn't there from the very beginning. Because there was no Boeing itself, which the BUK or “drying” allegedly shot down.

And a commission in the Netherlands spent a whole year collecting a fragment of the fuselage from the wreckage and making holes in it in the required way, so that it could later be presented as evidence of a hit by a BUK air defense missile. To get something similar to the skin of a bus that was shelled near Volnovakha, which Poroshenko then showed to everyone. Only the holey fragment of the Boeing will be ten times larger and the holes will be more convincing. It’s not for nothing that they work all year long.

Let's now summarize everything that the Foundling Boeing version explains:

1. The absence of craters and holes at the site where massive debris fell from a great height.
2. The engines are too small for the Boeing 777.
3. The total amount of debris is several times less than it should be.
4. There are too few passenger seats at the crash site.
5. Among the main debris are corpses, things and grass untouched by the fire.
6. Many invalid passports.
7. The location of the debris is not far from the road and along the road, which is unlikely in a real disaster.
8. The commission rejected part of the wreckage, which is contrary to the principles of air crash investigation.
9. There are no witnesses to the BUK air defense missile system, although there must be hundreds, and maybe even thousands.
10. There is a contradictory story with the dispatchers’ negotiations - either they are posted, or they are not posted, or they are posted, but they are not.
11. There is a contradictory story about the relatives of the victims - either they exist or not, some journalists found them from lists of relatives, but when visiting it turned out that no one died, or died many years ago.
12. Protracted investigation and lack of concrete conclusions.

But with all this, there are several questions to which the “foundling” version does not give a clear answer:

1. Why didn’t DPR representatives expose the “foundling”?
2. Why didn’t the Russian Ministry of Defense expose the “foundling”, but instead began to build versions about the “drying”, about the Ukrainian BUK, and posted flight radar data showing the deviation of MH-17 from the course?
3. Why did Almaz-Antey simulate the defeat of Boeing by BUK?
4. Why did the Russian President convey condolences to the dead if no one died?

It would seem that this cannot be explained, since it would be beneficial for Russia to uncover the staging and thereby protect itself from attacks in aiding the “Donetsk bandits” who shoot down Boeings at high altitudes. And no accusations regarding the supply of BUK air defense systems would arise in this case.

But... not everything is as simple as they say.

I'll try to explain:

The President and his condolences to the relatives of the victims.

Imagine the situation. All over the world media there is news about a monstrous plane crash, and even near the borders of Russia, with suspicion of its involvement. Three hundred dead! Kids! Women! They would still live and live, if not for the militant separatists somewhere near the borders of Russia, supported by Moscow and shooting at planes from Russian anti-aircraft guns...

Have you imagined what picture the whole world sees?

Now imagine what would have happened if Putin had struck a pose and declared, “This is a stage show! No one died!”

There would be a real hysteria in the media - “How did no one die? Look! Kids! Little kids! Poor unfortunate kids! They were so young and innocent! Women! Old people! They still have time to live! Aaaaaaaah! Oh-oh-oh! The President of Russia is a bloody tyrant, a terrible person, nothing is sacred, he doesn’t feel sorry for these poor unfortunate children Oh-oh-oh! Kids! Oh-oh-oh! They should still live! Soulless Kremlin bastard!

Well, in the current situation, when the whole world, under the influence of the image transmitted by all the media, fell into the deepest grief for the children, the president could not calmly spit on worldwide mourning.

Putin would simply be anathematized by the whole world.

And Russia would immediately be listed as an accomplice of terrorism and the number one threat. And then there would be no talk of establishing relations with the West, literally at all. And establishing relations is the Kremlin’s main goal.

Western media would create a completely clear picture: he annexed Crimea, started a war in Donbass, and even covers up inhumane terrorist attacks. That's it, a villain of the first category, a new Bin Laden, no less.

It must be assumed that the directors of the “foundling” were counting on this: that a wave would instantly rise in all media, the world would fall into grief for the unfortunate children who were so young and could still live and live... and the President of Russia would be forced to join to world sorrow, so as not to become a mega-villain and accomplice of terrorists.

As far as one can judge, the calculation worked.

The President joined in condolences to the relatives of the victims and... thereby supported the version of the downed plane.

And all the further behavior of the Ministry of Defense, Almaz-Antey and the DPR, as well as the Russian media and experts, was a consequence of the fact that the president joined in the condolences, as a result of which the version that the Boeing was indeed shot down became official and axiomatic.

In a good way, the Kremlin had to immediately get its act together, calculate the consequences of supporting the version of the downed Boeing and figure out how to expose the “foundling” in such a way that the president would not look like a fool and put an end to the accusations against Russia.

But the Kremlin did not do this. The Kremlin has had big problems with forecasting for thirty years now. If this were not so, then neither the collapse of the USSR, nor the Maidan, nor the war in Donbass, nor sanctions would have happened.

As a result, Russia began to act based on the axiom that the Boeing was shot down.

The Boeing was shot down - this thesis was recorded and they began to think about how to deflect blame from themselves. And creativity began. Let's show that there was a Ukrainian fighter nearby. Let's. Let's show that Boeing has veered off course. Let's. Let's show that there were Ukrainian BUKs nearby. Let's. Let's find the person who saw the pilot who shot down the Boeing. Let's...

And Almaz-Antey did not stand aside either. I decided to carry out a reconstruction using photographs of the wreckage and calculate the angle at which the BUK air defense missile was flying. We figured it out. Over the wreckage. For those debris that no BUK has ever hit. And what? If there is a desire, there are a thousand possibilities and there are no barriers to fools. At the same time, we could also determine the name of the soldier who carried out the launch. According to the angle of inclination of the blades of grass in the place where the truck dumped the wreckage of some left plane. And what? Could...

What had a greater influence on the work of various Russian departments - whether the Kremlin gave such a powerful directive to “justify Russia by all means”, or whether the lackeys themselves hastened to curry favor and succeeded in their zeal - it is difficult to determine now.

All that remains is to state that Russia was outplayed. Again.

They simply threw a stale corpse at Russia’s door and forced her to make crooked excuses that she didn’t kill anyone. And then they invited me to court.

And now try to prove that you did not kill, when you yourself have already recognized a corpse that does not exist!

And everyone began to excitedly build versions - on the Ukrainian side about the Russian BUK, and on the Russian side about the Ukrainian BUK or “drying”, whoever liked what they liked best.

And so everyone became interested in finding out whether the “drying” could rise to a height of 10 kilometers, whether the militia could have a BUK, whether the “trace over Torez” was a fake...

We got so carried away by these questions that we didn’t even think about the main thing -

Was there a Boeing?

Maybe there was no Boeing...

Unfortunately, there are many such tragedies in the history of Russia. And most of them have one annoying pattern - the investigations are not completed. The reports of reputable commissions appointed to reveal the causes of what happened are, for the most part, unconvincing, suffering from numerous omissions and deviations from logic.

For example, at that time it was reported that Lieutenant Colonel Gennady Osipovich, who was piloting the interceptor, fired two missiles at the State Border violator, after which the liner “went towards the Sea of ​​Okhotsk.” A little later, the Chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, Marshal of the Soviet Union Nikolai Ogarkov, confirmed: the South Korean airliner was shot down by our air defense.

But even then a suspicion arose that this confession was a diversionary maneuver, with the help of which the much larger events of that day were “classified.”

However, familiar officers from various air defense formations immediately drew attention to inconsistencies in the official presentation of events, to logical gaps and technical absurdities. And although at that time it was not safe to talk about it, but even to think about it, many experts came to the conclusion: our Boeing fighter did not shoot down...

These conversations in a narrow campaign of air defense officers surfaced in my memory when, many years later, I came across a book by the French researcher Michel Brun, “World War III over Sakhalin, or Who Shot Down the Korean Airliner?” I’ll say right away that at first it was very difficult and even dreary to read Brun’s “report” - the author is so meticulous in details. But having “entered” the topic, laid out a map of Kamchatka and Sakhalin in front of me and drawn the routes proposed by the author, I came to the conclusion: the author is convincing.

It should be noted that Brun examined all publications in the world press, including the Russian one, where the most notable was a series of articles in Izvestia, and compared them. He also studied the reports of search vessels, conducted interviews with rescuers from different countries, listened to tapes of radio communications, from which it became clear who, at what time and on what course, deviated when and by how many degrees.

From a huge amount of information, Michel Brun made several amazing conclusions that changed the views of many about that tragedy. As it happened with the author of these lines.

Firstly, Soviet Boeing 747 fighters definitely did not shoot down flight KAL 007. Secondly, this plane actually participated in a large-scale US reconnaissance operation and therefore, having turned off the identification equipment, it was most likely shot down not over the Far East, but 400-500 km from the Japanese city of Niigata - either by Japanese or American fighters that were alarmed en masse.

This version is confirmed by the fact that flight KAL 007 went on air 44 minutes after it was allegedly shot down by a Soviet fighter. By the way, the pilot Osipovich, who during the years of perestroika found freedom from his previous vows regarding Boeing, later told reporters more than once: “I didn’t shoot down a Korean passenger plane!” He, in particular, clarified that he flew not on a Su-15 (as was officially announced), but on the latest MiG-31, and took off twice and attacked targets twice. Which?..

Here is the most convincing confirmation of the words of Lieutenant Colonel Osipovich: among the wreckage of aircraft found at the bottom at the site of the supposed crash of the Boeing 747, not a single body of dead passengers was found. And there were 269 people on board. By the way, the remains have not been found yet.

Certificate

“...The most important thing is not what we saw there, but what we didn’t see. But they didn’t see more than two hundred corpses... There were only 28 of them. When we went down for the first time, we expected to see a whole cemetery, but no, it wasn’t there! There were things, yes, there were: tattered leather jackets, shoes, umbrellas in covers and... mountains of radio equipment...”

Divers Grigory Matveenko and Vadim Kondratyev, who worked under water for 6-8 hours for a month, inspecting the wreckage of the plane

But many items were discovered that clearly indicated the military affiliation of the downed (in the plural!) aircraft. Michel Brun counted nine crash sites for the planes shot down that night and early in the morning. Moreover, in the wreckage of one of them there was the tail of an American air-to-air missile, which suggests that one of the victims was a Soviet plane, the rest were American.

And Bruhn concludes: there was no South Korean Boeing, but there was a large-scale operation, which was a “star” raid on Soviet territory, that is, almost from all directions.

This operation could well have led to World War III. Another question: why were both sides silent about this operation then and still are? If a compromise was found, on what terms?

In any case, the famous Russian humorist Mikhail Zadornov was right, who argued that our past is more unpredictable than the present.

Chronicle of diving spies

The account of foreign aircraft shot down by Soviet air defense was opened on June 16 and July 13, 1952 by Swedish reconnaissance aircraft PBY Catalina and DC-3. This forced the US and its allies to change tactics.

Since 1954, unmanned drifting balloons (“ADA”) began to be used for reconnaissance flights over the USSR. Over 20 years, the Soviet air defense forces recorded more than 4,000 ADA flights, but managed to shoot down only 473.

Since 1956, the American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft has been the leader in the skies. Until 1960, U-2s made 24 unpunished incursions into Soviet airspace. They even flew over Moscow, Kyiv and other major cities of the USSR. The first U-2 was shot down on May 1, 1960 near Sverdlovsk.

Since the mid-1960s, US reconnaissance aircraft began flying over the Far East.

On November 28, 1973, our air border was violated by an Iranian T-33 plane. A MiG-21SM flew out to intercept it. Pilot Gennady Eliseev, having spent his ammunition, went to ram the intruder. This was the first aerial ramming attack on a jet aircraft. The pilot was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

On April 20, 1978, the first acquaintance of Soviet military pilots with South Korean passenger planes violating the USSR air border took place. The state border in the area of ​​the Kola Peninsula was crossed by a passenger Boeing-707 of KAL airlines, operating a Paris-Anchorage-Seoul flight. The flight of the airliner was stopped over Karelia by two air-to-air missiles fired from a Su-15TM.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, light aircraft began to plague Soviet air defenses. In the fall of 1978, a Chinese plane was forcibly landed in Primorye; in the summer of 1986 - two Iranian planes in Azerbaijan.

Even in the 21st century, Russian air defense records several dozen violations of the country’s airspace by foreign aircraft every month.

In July 2018 alone, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, about 80 foreign aircraft conducted reconnaissance activities near the borders of Russia.

Could the crew land the plane on water?

A search operation continues at the crash site of the Boeing 737 Max 8, which operated flight JT-610 from Jakarta to the Indonesian city of Pankal Pinang, and crashed 13 minutes after takeoff in the Java Sea. It is already clear that all 189 people on board were killed. We talked about what could have happened on board, and whether it was possible to land the plane on water, with the pilot Vladimir Salnikov, who, as a commander, flew the Il-96-300 for more than 20 thousand hours without incident.

The plane disappeared from radar 13 minutes after takeoff. During this time, he had to gain a height of about 5 - 6 thousand meters. But, according to official reports, he rose only 1,600 meters. This is extremely small, which means the engines did not produce the necessary thrust.

- For what reason?

The first possible reason is the failure of one of the engines. Second, this is substandard fuel. The engine worked, but did not produce the required thrust. Surge has occurred (a disturbance in the correct flow of air flow through the turbine of a turbojet engine. Manifested by strong vibration, popping noises, the appearance of smoke and a drop in thrust. - Author)

Surge can still occur if they “caught” a bird in both engines during takeoff. These could be either large seagulls or pelicans. It could be that both one engine and the other were damaged.

It seems strange to me, if this happened to them, then why did they not transmit any information to the dispatcher during these 13 minutes. All you had to do was not continue the flight, but immediately turn around and make an approach.

According to the head of Lion Air, which owns the aircraft, the day before, when the plane flew from Denpasar to Tsenkareng, it was found to have technical problems. Before departure on the next flight, they were eliminated. The Boeing 737 Max 8 was found to be operational.

This may just be related to the operation of the engine. According to the idea, the plane should fly on one engine and even gain altitude. The rate of climb will be lower, but it still must gain altitude. And, in any case, not 1600 meters, but somewhere around 2500 meters.

- Could the crew land the plane on water?

We practice these actions on simulators. But this is a simulator, but in reality everything is more complicated, water is incompressible. Over the past 70 years, there have been only two successful cases when the plane splashed down and everyone remained safe. The first was when on August 21, 1963 the pilots were able to land the Tu-124 on the Neva. After takeoff, the crew discovered that the front landing gear was jammed in the half-retracted position. They produced fuel. Over the very center of Leningrad, first one and then the second turbine of the plane stalled. The pilots had no choice but to try to land the plane on the water. We splashed down successfully. None of the 45 passengers and 7 crew members were injured. The second incident occurred on January 15, 2009. The Airbus A320-214 aircraft collided with a flock of Canada geese after takeoff and both engines failed. The crew was able to land the plane on the Hudson River in New York. All 155 people on board survived.

All other attempts to land the plane on water ended in disaster.

A spokesman for Indonesia's disaster management agency said the plane's fuel tank was found broken and ruptured, leaking.

Engineers and designers have done everything to prevent the detonation of kerosene vapors that are in the fuel tank in order to avoid a fire. There is a gas-air mixture that prevents the tank from exploding. When the fuel has already flown out of the tanks and comes into contact with air and oxygen, then it can ignite. And if the fuel remains in the tank and the container is not damaged, then there should not be an explosion.

According to some reports, on a previous flight the system gave the pilots the signal “air speed unreliable” - “incorrect speed readings.”

Both the commander and the co-pilot have instruments - speed indicators. There are also backup speed indicators. They should all show the same speed. If there is a discrepancy, it is necessary to check all total pressure receivers and static pressure receivers. Moreover, now all this happens through computers. And we need to find out which of these devices is giving out incorrect information. Pilots are trained for this. They know what to do if such information comes up during a flight.

- Could the crew have made a mistake?

They could exclude a working device from flight control, and pay attention and focus on the faulty device. In this case, they could lose speed and fall into a tailspin. But on modern aircraft there are additional means that tell the pilot that he can reach critical angles of attack and fall into a tailspin. I don't think the situation developed that way.

- The version of the terrorist attack should not be discounted?

There could have been a terrorist attack. But in this case, the crew does not have time to somehow signal or report an emergency situation on board. And then the crew managed to request a return to the departure airport. There are special conditioned signals for priority landing approaches. But they generally managed to fly quite far from the airport. In my opinion, the decision to return should have been made earlier. Why fly somewhere on a faulty plane? When it is possible to turn around and land at the departure airfield.

Honored Pilot of Russia Yuri Sytnik agrees with his colleague:

The plane is completely new, it has only been flying since August. Most likely, the cause of the disaster was an engine malfunction. Or something could have happened with the controls. They had already begun to turn around and could have collided with someone. One thing is clear, the flight was controllable, the pilots were in good condition.