Russian Rosaviatsiya was carrying out an investigation on the Ural Airlines Flight 1383, operating a scheduled Russian domestic flight between Sochi International Airport (AER) and Omsk Central Airport (OMS), that landed on a wheat field on 12 September 2023.
"The emergency landing of the Ural Airlines Airbus A320 on September 12, 2023 in a wheat field near Novosibirsk occurred as a result of multiple violations and errors made by the crew."
According to Izvestia, this is stated in the recommendations of "Rosaviatsiya - the Federal Air Transport Agency", which has finally completed the investigation of the flight incident. The crew's mistakes led to a shortage of fuel when leaving for an alternate airfield.
The cockpit of the jetliner made a decision for an emergency landing in a field involving a fuel emergency last September. Miraculously, none of the 159 passengers or six crew sustained injuries or fatalities in the serious incident.
During final approach into Omsk, at an altitude of 2,000 feet, the cockpit discovered a hydraulic failure in the brakes as they lowered the landing gear.
After initiating go-around procedures, the crew quickly made the decision to divert to Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport (OVB), which offers significantly longer runways than Omsk.
However, the hydraulic failure left the landing gear door stuck open, and strong headwinds significantly increased fuel consumption. As fuel levels became critical, pilots were forced to land the aircraft in a wheatfield near the Siberian village of Kamenka, approximately 110 miles from Novosibirsk.
According to the agency, the reasons for the lack of training of pilots for actions in a complicated situation are "shortcomings in ensuring flight safety, in the organization of flight work and professional training of flight crew members in the airline."
Based on the results of the investigation, the commission recommended that Ural Airlines, among other things, consider punitive action with the positions of persons responsible for ensuring flight safety.
The decision on their dismissal or retention of positions will be made by the Board of Directors of the airline, Izvestia writes, referring to the press secretary of Ural Airlines Vera Gasnikova.
Contrary to these developments, their colleagues, also Ural Airlines pilots, who landed an Airbus A321 aircraft in a cornfield in 2019, had no such problems. If one can remember, then the incident was quickly replicated in the media, and Vladimir Putin immediately awarded the pilots with medals in front of the media, until any investigation could be completed.
A321 aircraft's captain Damir Yusupov and co-pilot Georgy Murzin were awarded the title of Heroes of Russia, the rest of the crew members were awarded the Order of Courage. Also a film was made about their heroism.
Later, many aviation experts agreed that in the 2019 case, too, the pilots made a number of serious mistakes during the flight.
However, the difference in approach now is due to the fact that this is the second situation of Ural Airlines, and if the first time they decided to defend the company's management with numerous awards and positive publicity, this time it was not possible to do so.
Russian civil aviation pilot, A320 captain Andrey Litvinov says,
"In order to avoid responsibility, the company's management in the first case began to hoot in honor of the pilots. We began to tell all the journalists what heroes these pilots were, how they saved everyone."
" In the second case, it was also the case, the only difference is that in the first case it worked, and in the second it did not. Here, too, they wanted to excuse the pilots, but it just didn't work out, and the Federal Air Transport Agency rejected their investigation and created a new commission. Because everyone has clearly felt some excesses. Both situations are the same: the commander's inability to fly."
Initially, the commission of the West Siberian MTU of the Federal Air Transport Agency completed its investigation of this incident at the end of October 2023.
But a week later, the Rosaviatsiya agency canceled its report and resumed the investigation due to certain violations that reduced the quality of the report.
The central office of the department then identified in the document (report) errors in calculations, contradictions, unconfirmed data, incorrect statements, recommendations that were incorrect and insufficient to prevent similar events in the future.
Understandably, Ural Airlines has now abandoned plans to bring back the Airbus A320 to flying conditions, that's stuck in the farmer's field, and mostly will be used as a spare parts feeder for other serviceable planes.
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