The September Russian plane crash that killed a top hockey team was caused by human error: It appears that a pilot accidently hit the aircraft’ s brakes as it was attempting to take off.
That was the finding, released last week by Russia’s Intersate Aviation Commission, about the Sept, 7 crash of a Yak-42 that had been chartered by the hockey team Yaroslav Lokomotiv. The immediate dead included 43 people, many of them hockey stars who had played for the National Hockey League. Five days after the accident, a crash survivor died, putting the death toll at 44.
Russian authorities don’t know if the plane’s pilot or co-pilot advertantly hit the brakes, so that the aircraft didn’t have enough speed for a successful takeoff, according to The New York Times. The plane was aloft for a few short moments before it crashed roughly 500 yards from the runway, the paper reported.
The crew were very experienced in flying the Yak-40, but not so much experienced with the Yak-22. The position of the pedals are very different on the Yak-42 compared with the Yak-42, and that is what authorities believe led to the crash.
“Inadequate retraining meant the men probably kept the habit of of holding their feet fully on the pedals during takeoff, standard procedure on a Yak-40,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “On the Yak-22 — as well as on nearly all other modern plane — pilots keep their heels on the floor during the takeoff to keep their toes clear of the upper part, of the pedals, which control the brakes. About halfway down the runway, one of the pilots began gently applying the brakes, probably inadvertantly.”
That meant that the plane didn’t have enought speed to take off. But the pilots didn’t abort. They tried to make the plane go faster, according to The Journal.
While pulling back on the stick to get the plane’s nose off the ground, The Journal reported, one of the pilots “jammed his feet on the brake pedals.”
The plane crashed into the banks of the Volga River, turning into a fire ball.
The Russian investigators also found that the operator of the plane, Yak-Service, had a number of safety violations. For example, the co-pilot on the doomed flight had an illness “that affected control and sensitivity in his hands and feet,” according to The Journal.
That ailment should have kept him from flying, but he remained active because he passed his physicals. He also had phenobarbital in his system, “a depressant that can slow reaction times,” according to The Times.
The paper also reported that relatives of the two pilots are challenging the results of the investigation, and that they want to have their own probe. The widow of one pilot said that he and the other pilot were professionals who would not make the kind of mistakes that they are being accused of.