Photo of RA-42434 is dated June 2010, only photos of the captain and first officer could be found
Aircraft Photo:
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Accident Details:
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On September 7th, 2011, a Yak-42 of the airline "Yak Service" (a company renting aircraft) was flying on the route Yaroslavl - Minsk. There were 45 people on board - including the Yaroslavl Hockey Club "Lokomotiv" in full force - 30 people. The flight crew consisted of:
• Captain: Andrey Anatolyevich Solomentsev
• First Officer: Igor Konstantinovich Zhevelov
• Flight Engineer: Sergey Valeryevich Zhuravlev
(There was no navigator)
The flight crew did not perform a large number of necessary procedures - calculation of center of gravity, takeoff weight etc. Ground services also failed to weigh the luggage.
The plane taxied to the runway. The captain decides to take off immediately from the place where they left and not go to the beginning of the runway. According to him, "There is nowhere to turn around" (13:52), although there was a place. Thus, loosing 300 meters of useable runway.
There was 2,500 meters of runway left. For a normal takeoff, 1200 meters was required. At 11:58am the aircraft starts moving normally, however it starts to slow down - one of the pilots unconsciously presses the foot brakes. Acceleration decreased from 5 km/h to 3 km/h.
An attempt to raise the plane at 185km/h was unsuccessful (VR was infact 220km/h). The pilots pull the yoke up harder (in which someone presses the brake harder). If a pilot places their foot on the pedal incorrectly, they can inadvertently push the brake. The captain gives the command to set the throttles to take-off mode. At a speed of 230km/h, the Yak-42 overruns the runway.
The captain pushes the yoke down and pulls it up again, the first officer does not understand this and says "What the hell are you doing?!" (16:28). The flight engineer interprets the action of the yoke being pushed forward as a sign to abort the take-off and sets the throttles to idle mode. Noticing this, the pilots react: "TAKE-OFF!" "Why the fu*k did you do that for?"
400 meters passed the runway threshold the aircraft struck a localizer antenna in which a 20 degrees nose-up attitude was attained along with a height of 6 metres. The airplane then rolled left, struck the ground and broke up on the side of the Volga River. There was only one survivor Alexander Sizov, an airport equipment engineer who was sitting in the passenger salon.
On september 21st 2011, Yak Service had its licence revoked as multiple violations were found, in 2009 (2 years before the accident) the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) barred the airline from operating in the EU due to major safety deficiencies.
The investigation revealed both pilots falsified their records stating they had undergone training to fly the YAK-42. The first officer was found to have leg coordination disturbances and deep sensibility disorders of lower extremities. Phenobarbital was found in his blood which has a negative impact on the nervous system.
English subtitles added, re-uploaded due to video quality problems.
