Aeroflot Flight 593
| Occurrence | |
|---|---|
| Date | March 23 1994 |
| Summary | Pilot error, 15-year old in control of airplane |
| Site |  near Mezhdurechensk, Siberia, Russia |
| Aircraft type | Airbus A310-304 |
| Aircraft name | Glinka |
| Operator | RAL Russian Air Lines |
| Registration | F-OGQS |
| Passengers | 63 |
| Crew | 12 |
| Fatalities | 75 |
| Injuries | 0 |
| Survivors | 0 |
Aeroflot Flight 593 was an accident on March 23 1994 in which a RAL Russian Air Lines Airbus A310-304 passenger airliner, registration F-OGQS, operating on behalf of Aeroflot, crashed into a hillside in Siberia. All 75 passengers and crew were killed. The cockpit voice recorder revealed that the pilot's 15-year-old son, Eldar Kudrinsky, was initially at the controls when the incident began, and that he had unknowingly activated an automatic feature of the A310's autopilot that many pilots at the time were unfamiliar with.
The jet was en route from Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO) to Hong Kong's former Hong Kong international airport (Kai Tak Airport). The pilot, Yaroslav Kudrinsky, was taking his two children on their first international flight and they were brought to the cockpit while he was on duty. With the autopilot active, Kudrinsky, against regulations, offered to let them sit at the controls. First his daughter took the pilot's left front seat. Kudrinsky adjusted the autopilot's heading to give her the impression that she was turning the plane, though she actually had no control of the plane. Next, his son Eldar took the pilot's seat. Unlike his sister, Eldar applied enough force to the steering column to contradict the autopilot for 30 seconds.
What nobody knew was that he had partially disconnected the autopilot, and the flight computer switched the plane's ailerons to manual control, while maintaining control over the other flight systems. The plane did not audibly signal a warning that this had occurred; although an indicator light did come on, it apparently went unnoticed by the pilots, who had previously flown planes with an audible warning signal. The first to notice a problem was Eldar, who observed that the plane was banking right. Shortly after, the flight path indicator changed to show they were in a holding pattern (when a plane circles an airport until it is clear to land). This confused the pilots for nine seconds.
Soon the plane banked past a 45-degree angle (steeper than it was designed for). This increased the g-force on the pilots and crew, making their bodies feel much heavier than usual, and making it impossible for the Captain to replace his son at the controls. After banking as much as 90 degrees, the remaining functions of the autopilot tried to correct the plane's attitude by putting the plane in an almost vertical ascent, nearly stalling the plane. The co-pilot and Eldar managed to get the plane into a nosedive, which reduced the G-force on the pilots and enabled the Captain to take the controls. Though he and his co-pilot did regain control, their altitude by then was too low to recover, and the plane crashed.
A recovery procedure that the pilots were not made aware of on the A310 was that, had their hands been taken off the controls during the stall, the plane would have taken its own corrective action to recover.
This incident is very similar to that in the novel Airframe; both accidents had unauthorized family members at the controls and would have been avoided had autopilot been allowed to take over. A season three episode of the Canadian-produced TV series Mayday, "Kid in the Cockpit", featured this crash.
The flight number
Although it is common airline practice to retire the flight numbers of flights involved in fatal accidents, Aeroflot continues to use flight number 593 on its Moscow–Hong Kong service as of January 2007. The service has been expanded from twice weekly to four times a week. The additional flights are assigned flight number 595. Both flights are now, however, being operated with Boeing 767-300 aircraft.
References
- This accident is featured in one of the episodes of the documentary Mayday (aka Air Emergency/Air Crash Investigation).
- Airdisaster.com account of the crash, with wreckage photo.
- Aviation Safety Network account of the crash, with cited sources.
- Airliners.net picture of Glinka.