Human error caused Russian plane crash
( 2001-07-10 16:29 ) (7 )

Human error caused the crash of a Russian Tu-154 airliner at Irkutsk, Siberia in which 145 people died last week, an investigating committee headed by Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said Tuesday.

The crash occurred "due to the unintentional transfer of the aircraft, with a nearly complete rotation of the controls, to a wide angle of attack which led to the aircraft stalling and going into a spin with a resulting collision with the ground," Klebanov told a press conference.

"It may have been a second pilot's error, but that point has still to be examined to determine exactly what the two pilots were doing," Klebanov said, singling out, in response to reporters' questions, the "human factor."

"After analysing the black boxes which were in very good condition, the committee of inquiry ... concluded that the engines and the controls had functioned normally," Klebanov said.

"The traffic control and weather services had functioned properly," he said.

A member of the investigating commission, Rudolf Teimuzarov, said that at the plane's altitude of 800 metres (2,800 feet), "when it went into a spin, it was virtually impossible to correct the situation."

"The engine's continued working fully until the moment the plane hit the ground," he said.

The report's findings were presented to President Vladimir Putin on Monday.

Sources close to the commission had previously signalled that human error had been indentified as the cause of the disaster.

All 136 passengers and nine crew were killed last Tuesday when the TU-154 travelling on a domestic flight from Yekaterinburg to Vladivostok crashed near the airport at Irkutsk, Siberia, where it was due to refuel.