Accident of An-12 near the city. The same mistake again?..

So, ladies and gentlemen. As reported the UNIAN, today, October 4, at 7:10 local time near Lviv crash-landed transport plane An-12. First it disappeared from radar, and then crash landed a mile from the runway of international airport “Lviv”. The plane was carrying seven crew members and persons accompanying the goods. Of these, five people died, three were hospitalized.

Footage from the scene of the crash. As you can see, the cockpit is completely destroyed.

A few facts about the plane:

An-12 BK tail number UR-CAH was released on TAPOiCh 15 may 1968, and has since been in operation. During his long life, managed to fly in the air force of the Union, then served as a truck in Ukraine, Moldova, and even managed to visit the Emirates. At the time of accident the age of the aircraft amounted to nearly 51.5 years.

The aircraft was performing a cargo flight from Vigo (Spain) to Istanbul and was scheduled to arrive in Lviv to refuel.

The dependence of the range of loading it. It is clearly seen that when loaded into 10 ton An-12БК can fly a little over 4000 miles.

It should be noted that the distance between Vigo and Lviv in a straight line 2641 km. If you take into account the departure airport, return to the course, bypassing the thunderstorms on the route, landing, etc. – can be roughly considered that the aircraft actually had to overcome 2800-2900 (in the worst case – 3000) miles. In the morning in Lviv was fog, but not so strong that the plane could not land.

And thus we come to the fun part: the Minister of infrastructure of Ukraine Vladislav Crickley stated that the plane could make an emergency landing for lack of fuel. The same official sources it was reported that on Board were 10 tons of cargo. Then a reasonable question arises: how the plane with such a load can fly 4+ thousand kilometers, could result in fuel after 3000 miles?

I must say that the build version I am not going to just give my opinion. And all that is written on pure IMHO of the author.

So. The amount of fuel required for a flight is calculated taking into account many factors – weather, aircraft load, etc. and in each aviation security manual stipulates the required balance of fuel – which may be necessary, for example, for the alternate care or care to the second round.

Officially, the weight of the cargo in the aircraft was 10 tons. However, Ukraine-Aerolinas, which owns the plane – not a public but a private airline focusing on cargo flights. Unfortunately, in the history of Ukrainian aviation are not rare occasions when a cargo aircraft was loaded in excess of. And if to take into account the price of aviation fuel in Spain, in the head begins to emerge painfully familiar pattern:

An-12, which stood in Vigo refueled the minimum possible amount of fuel – to spare. At the same time, was loaded aboard more than 10 tons, were listed in the documents. Such schemes are frequently used Ukrainian private airline, and sometimes even the crew is not aware of the actual quantity of cargo on Board. And if to think sensibly, then everything falls into place – stop engine because of low fuel, emergency landing in the forest.

The saddest thing is that this is not the first case in the history of aviation, when a plane crash happened because of an overload. Recall the catastrophe of the An-32 in Kinshasa, when a cargo plane due to overload could not take off and crashed into a busy market… Then killed 298 people…

Summing up. I will not impose my point of view, but it seems to me that the scenario set out by me – one of the most adequate and logical.

That’s about it. You soft landings, gentlemen!

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