imagine being on an overnight flight to Hong Kong the cabin is dark and most of the passengers are sleeping suddenly the plane starts making some strange Maneuvers it turns 90 degrees and flies on its side then turns straight down pressing you back with more than four G's of force after making some recovery you're now in an unreal weightless Free Fall if you didn't know better you'd think a child was wildly playing with the controls unfortunately in this case you wouldn't be wrong this is the Fatal breakdown of the aeroflot flight 593 crash in March of
1994 aeroflot flight 593 was traveling from Moscow to Hong Kong with a fairly routine Flight Plan the three Pilots would be rotating turns at the helm since this was a long flight the captain of the group would finish his shift and move to the cabin for some rest the relief pilot yaroslav kadrinsky took over as Captain his co-pilot was first officer Igor piscariov the two pilots had a combined 15 000 hours of flight time including 1400 hours in the A310 the Airbus A310 300 was a brand new Advanced aircraft in the aeroflot fleet these Pilots
had the majority of their hours on russian-made planes which had slightly different standards on warnings and limits for operation these subtle differences may have been the tragic difference between a miraculous recovery and a fiery crash in addition to the pilot and co-pilot there was actually a third pilot in the cockpit that night Vladimir Makarov was another aeroflot pilot riding as a passenger on this flight as a courtesy he was allowed to sit in one of the jump seats behind the pilots as the quiet of the overnight flight set in the captain decided to allow a
couple visitors into the cockpit this unusual event was actually an exciting circumstance for captain kadrinsky his children were on this flight since they were scheduled to have a short vacation together in Hong Kong the plane was flying on autopilot the course was set and this was the uneventful portion of the flight for Pilots his 15 year old son Eldar and 13 year old daughter Yana entered the cockpit at 12 40 AM the initial banter revealed a proud father showing his complicated job as a commercial Captain to his impressed children after just a few minutes Captain
kadrinsky steps out of his seat and Jana takes his place the moment he removed his harness to stand he should have transferred control of the plane to the co-pilot at this point Igor piscarov had his seat pushed back in a relaxed position without really being able to reach all of the flight controls if the captain had transferred control formally piscariov would have moved his seat forward and placed his hands on the control wheel it was a seemingly small error but as we'll see small errors can add up to be a huge mistake as the captain
moved out he moved Yana in it was a harmless exchange considering the plane was on autopilot and it would allow her to get a closer look she spent a few minutes looking around asking a few questions and touching the control wheel her father suggested that she turned the wheel to the left and fly the plane she did as he asked and the plane quickly turned to the left as a child I'm sure the magical feeling of controlling this huge plane was thrilling but Captain kadrinsky had performed a little magic of his own he quickly turned
a knob to direct the plane to the left he was following a procedure that he had performed hundreds of times while the plane was in fact on autopilot there are ways for the pilots to take control of one function or another the captain pulled out the heading select knob and directed the plane to the left by 15 degrees in simple terms this meant that the wings would essentially dip 15 degrees on the left side causing the plane to roll towards the left in this case the autopilot was still controlling the speed and altitude it also
still had the programmed root waiting to be resumed as soon as the captain pushed the knob back in the autopilot would resume the programmed heading and continue on with the planned flight a pilot might use this function to direct the plane around a storm then resume the autopilot Course once it's passed after Yana had experienced turning the controls for a moment she was ready to get out of the seat and turned to get up the captain quickly spoke up getting in and out of the seat can be a risky task if you don't know what
you're doing there are Rudder pedals on the ground and numerous buttons and switches near knees and elbows that a child might not notice Captain kadrinsky told her to go slow and slide out carefully so far it seems that the show and tell was going as expected and mostly all attention and Care was being directed to cockpit safety the autopilot was in full control and all five individuals in the cockpit were relaxed and enjoying this break from the routine at 12 51 it was eldar's turn to take a closer look he slid into the captain's seat
and started eyeing the various buttons and readouts after a few minutes at 12 54 Eldar asked if he could turn the plane and the captain repeated the maneuver [Music] the guest pilot Makarov suggested that Captain kudrensky adjust the main screen to show The Horizon visual so Eldar could see the angle on the screen the time was 12 55 and the heading select knob was pushed back in the autopilot was fully engaged as far as anyone could tell at this point Jana started asking her father if she could head back to her seat in the cabin
they were discussing that she should be quiet and not disturb the first class passengers when Eldar spoke up with a question this called the attention of all three Pilots to the instruments they were all a bit confused by the turn no one had been fully engaged with the flight controls for several minutes so reorienting themselves to what was going on took precious seconds when a plane is required to Circle an airport for landing called a holding pattern it often enters what they call a Zone the flight would follow a prescribed circling pattern that was like
an oval shape around the airport on the instrument display the previous straight line would have curved around in a u-shape showing the full turn that was planned in the programmed course this Zone pattern was the only explanation for why the autopilot would be taking them around in a circle the confusing part was that they were nowhere near an airport so why the holding pattern over the 20 seconds they spent looking And discussing the plane had banked more than 45 degrees this exceeds the maneuvering capabilities of the autopilot and the plane attempted to correct the speed
and altitude in regards to this angled position the changes were instantly alarming and the pilots moved to resolve the issue at this point it was 12 56 alarms were going off regarding the altitude and Bank angle the autopilot was now fully disengaged the plane was banking at an incredible 90 degrees while the nose was pointing down at a 50 degree angle this means they were barreling towards the ground at nearly 500 miles per hour the direction and speed of the plane was now generating 4.6 G's of force which exceeds the structural limitations of the plane
this Force kept pescaria from being able to pull forward and fully engage the controls it also kept Eldar and Captain kadrensky from being able to change places during this time the co-pilot was trying to slow the plane by reducing thrust and pulling up on the nose but he greatly over corrected the situation these actions along with an accidental Rudder pedal pushed by Eldar when switching places caused a stall and then a nightmarish spiral down out of control just moments before the passengers would have been pressed into their seats while turned completely on their sides it
would have been Madness to wake up to these wild shifts in angle heavy g-forces and then In This Moment pure weightlessness the g-force reduced to zero as they fell out of the sky it was now 1257 and Captain kadrensky was back in his seat listen ing foreign the deadly spin was now coming under control and Captain kadrinsky was confident that things were going to be fine unfortunately at this point they were less than one thousand feet above the ground and that was just not enough at 12 58 they crashed into the ground the captain's final
words were bad so how did this happen the plane had absolutely no failures and performed just as it was designed to do the problem was a feature that the pilots just weren't familiar with under normal circumstances in the Russian Plains they'd mostly piloted an alarm would sound when any part of the autopilot was disengaged the Airbus A310 made an audible alarm when the autopilot was fully disengaged but it only alerted with a silent indicator light when just one of the systems was shut down the captain was completely unaware that while Eldar was turning the control
wheel the plane started counting down to autopilot shut off of the longitudinal roll controls so while Captain kadrinsky was talking to Yana about returning to her seat Eldar was continuing to turn the control wheel slightly after 30 seconds the autopilot system took this turning action to mean that the pilot needed to override whatever the autopilot had programmed the pilots never heard an alarm that the autopilot was interrupted so they continued with the belief that the autopilot must be turning the plane for a programmed reason this misunderstanding wasted precious seconds of potential recovery during this time
the plane's autopilot was still controlling the speed and altitude which caused some unknown changes to angles speed and direction of the plane without the pilots registering those shifts all of this happened in just a few minutes Eldar asked to turn the control at 1254. he asked why it turned by itself just one minute later the plane was banking hard for the next minute and by 1256 all the pilots were aware of the dangerous conditions and were frantically trying to figure out what was happening it was only two minutes until the flight came to a fiery
end at 12 58. it's hard to say what factor was most responsible for this crash was it the design that did not give the pilots an audible warning that autopilot was disengaged or was it the untrained teenager turning the control wheel these combined conditions resulted in all 75 passengers on board being killed instantly on impact in a completely devastating loss of life after this crash Airbus made adjustments to their autopilot system and banking angle limits for their future aircraft
