From Pravda, the tale of a Tu-154 being taken for a test flight, which for the pilots must have been the longest 10 minutes of their career as they slip and slide around the sky in a very badly behaved airliner :
The Office of the Military Prosecutor of the Moscow region has launched investigation into the incident with a Tu-154 airplane of the Defense Ministry. The incident occurred on Chkalovsky airbase in the Moscow region on April 29. The pilots managed to land the plane and prevent the air crash, but it seems that it happened by miracle.
The investigation was launched after the amateur video of the incident appeared on the Internet. The clip shows a Tu-154 aircraft swinging in the air soon after takeoff. It can be seen that the plane is very hard to control. What is worse, the pilots had to conduct all the maneuvers at low altitudes. However, they managed to avoid the crash, and the Tu-154 landed safely.
Reporters found out that the plane had not been used for six or even ten years before the bizarre flight. The Tupolev aircraft was supposed to be relocated for repairs, so it was decided to test the plane in the air. Instead of flying, however, the plane started whirling and dancing.
No one suffered during the emergency landing. The aircraft was not damaged during the landing either.
This first video of the take off looks normal enough at first but the swaying soon starts to become apparent :
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And this second video (when the cameraman gets to grips with his damned autofocus – be patient it improves after a short while) shows what a wild ride it must have been and would certainly have tested the balancing skills of even the most experienced trolley dolly :
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I imagine after little trip that plane that the pilots required stiff refreshments and a change of overalls.
As for the plane itself, I think NATO had the right idea with their codename :
The Tupolev Tu-154 (NATO reporting name: Careless) is a three-engine medium-range narrow-body airliner designed in the mid 1960s and manufactured by Tupolev.
I am sure that wasn’t the first phrase that came to the pilots minds though.
This incident lead to some research by NASA (I think) on developing backup control systems using differential engine thrust to land a plane with all the normal controls out of action. There’s a clip somewhere showing a DC10 making a perfectly good landing this way. Of course it had the considerable advantage of the high mounted tail engine which allowed pitch control. More conventional jets would still need a working pitch trim.
At risk of boring you, there is a celebrated story of a small RAF passenger plane which took off with one of the control locks still engaged – even they make mistakes! Quick thinking by the pilot saved the day – he called the passengers to stand close together, and on his command, move back and forth in the aisle. This was sufficient for him to level off, and then descend and land…
Microdave – I wonder if the passengers got paid for their assistance in landing?
And, dont worry, I find aviation (and all things mechanical) fascinating – university was a choice between aeronautical and nuclear engineering with the nukes winning by a nose although I have not been near a reactor since I finished the course in the early 90s and now work in financial analysis – weird how things work out isn’t it 🙂
I actually wish I had chosen the other option though but I will just have to be content with making gas turbines out of turbochargers in my workshop.
If you haven’t heard the story (or seen the documentary) you might want to Google DC10 Sioux City Iowa This is an incredible story of a plane seriously damaged by an engine failure, which thanks to a herculean effort by the crew made it back to terra firma. It crashed on landing and many people lost their lives, but none of the dozens of flight crew who subsequently tried to fly a simulator programmed with the same faults managed to get to the airport, let alone attempt an approach.
Microdave – I will definitely have a look at that – sounds very interesting.
As for the flight crews in the simulator – they were lacking the incentive of not sticking it into the floor with them sitting in the front pointy bit of course but even so it sounds like some real skills were deployed on the day itself.
Microdave – very interesting read – thankyou for taking the time to write about it 🙂
Interesting design process as well where you put in three redundant hydraulics systems and then route them all through the same 10 inch wide conduit in the tail which is almost begging to be hit by something and that something doesn’t have to be the size of a full fan rotor to take them all out either.
I think that is what’s known as “Dutch Roll”. I believe it is a particular problem with swept wing aircraft. I imagine they didn’t bother to check that the damping systems were working. See the first paragraph here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_roll
Undoubtedly they should have the book thrown at them for not insisting on a proper inspection and ground test before before deciding to go flying. However the fact that they got it back down safely is probably because they are used to flying “old Tech”, and still have some real piloting skills.
Microdave – interesting link there thankyou. I was amazed how far the plane was waving about and even more amazed they got it landed again. It would be interesting to know why it had bene sitting there for 6 years – the last log book entry probably said – “flying like a drunken pig”