MOSCOW, November 20. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian newspapers continue to cover the crash of Tatarstan Airlines' Boeing 737 which claimed 50 lives as new details have leaked to the press. On Wednesday, the newspapers mulled the pilots' incomprehensible actions during the landing maneuver.
"The Interstate Aviation Committee's (IAC) conclusions are shocking," the Kommersant newspaper writes. According to a flight data recorder, the plane nosedived after the autopilot was turned off. Specialists said only psychologists could explain these actions.
Meanwhile, aviation experts have been unable to give a satisfactory explanation of the pilot's actions. They are quite confident though that the crew's professional training was poor. Boeing commander Rustem Salikhov and co-pilot Viktor Gutsul had worked as navigator and flight engineer, respectively, for the larger part of their careers and became pilots just a few years ago. A source told the newspaper that specialists were examining the dead pilots' medical records and the results of their psychological tests which they had taken at regular intervals. Anyway, experts said only a person in a stupor on in a state of uncontrolled panic could fail to notice the 20-second fatal nosedive.
"Simply the pilots did not have enough experience," the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted test pilot, Hero of Russia Anatoly Knyshov as saying, as he commented in detail on the plane's landing maneuver. In his view, it was possible to bring the plane out of nosedive.
Director General of the Tatarstan Airline Aksan Giniyatullin, quoted by the Moskovsky Komsomolets, noted that the crew commander had never executed go-around in a real flight. Aviation experts told the newspaper that the flight hours logged on simulators were insufficient for perfecting the complex maneuver and bringing it to the proper level of safety.
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