Black boxes speaking

People guilty of the tragedy at Lvov air show named. Leonid Kuchma not on the list
1+1, Ukrainian TV channel with reference to an informed source informs, a governmental commission headed by national security and defense secretary Yeugeny Marchuk has completed an investigation of a SU-27 UB plane crash at an air show in Lvov. The commission has issued a conclusion and a list of people guilty of the tragedy. The conclusion will be soon presented to Ukraine President Leonid Kuchma.

As was expected, shortcomings of the pilots and violations of the show organizers were called direct causes of the air crash in Lvov. A SU-27 crew committed a pilotage mistake when it performed an element that had not been planned before. Moreover, second-in-command of the 14th aviation corps General Anatoly Tretyakov and assistant to the flight operations officer, Colonel Yury Yatsuk are accused of neglecting their duties. On August 7, the Court Martial of the Lvov garnison decided to take the two men into custody. Former commander-in-chief of the Ukraine air forces Viktor Strelnikov and commander of the 14th aviation corps Sergey Onishchenko, who had been detained earlier, were released.

Grave faults in preparation and organization of the air show were also mentioned as causes of the air crash. There are air forces officers and city officials on the list of those who are to share blame for the air crash.

Decoding of the Su-27 airborne recorder, that is already published in the newspapers, reveals that the SU-27 crew lost the bearings 1,5 minutes before it crashed down. When the pilots asked the surface services to give the coordinates of the place where the spectators were, no response was given. Records also reveal that the flight computer warned of a critical attack angle and maximum thermal overload several times before the crash.

The governmental commission declared that local authorities were also guilty of the crash because they did not provide for an emergency situation. Lvov mayor Lyubomir Bunyak is also on the list, although the official still denies participation of the local authorities in organization of the air show on July 27.

The governmental commission decreed, it is necessary to improve resource maintenance of Ukraine’s air forces and adopt a law on aviation and on demonstration flights. Besides, it is suggested that a special inspection authority is to be set up for flight safety control. The Defense Ministry should hold a re-certification of air forces officers.

According to the previously published statements of the governmental commission, 241 people are officially considered as suffered, 83 of them are under age. The commission declared 76 people, 27 children among them as killed in the tragedy (it is less that had been originally supposed, because unidentified parts of bodies belong to people who are already buried). Forty seven people are in Lvov hospitals now, nine of them are children; condition of four people is grave.

Andrey Lubensky PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/08/19/45891.html

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