Further details of Il-114 crash at Domodedovo suggests frozen linkage as cause of accident

Published: 12/29/1999

Further details have emerged of the crash on 5th December at Domodedovo Airport of an Il-114 registration number 91004. The aircraft belonging to its manufacturer TAPO was flying a charter flight from Moscow to Tashkent with a 2500 kg cargo and 7 crewmembers on board. Witnesses described the aircraft moving sideways shortly after lift-off and hitting the airport fence some 400 m beyond the end of the runway. At that point the plane was oriented at 90 degrees to the runway"s line. After the airplane crashed its fuselage broke in three pieces and caught fire. The emergency services rescued two crewmembers from the pilots" cockpit (Vasily Sviridov, commander and Nikolai Romashko, technician). The “black box" and cabin voice recorder have been found and reports say that there is a recording of one voice just before the crash crying “remove your foot from the pedal!", and the other voice answering “It is not there!". It is also reported that the commission has found that the aeroplane"s Klimov TV7-117S engines, which have been criticised for poor reliability, were functioning normally. It seems that the earlier reports of poor weather conditions were overstated with temperatures +5…7C, with the wind gusting at 13 m/sec. “The weather was not perfect, but it was considered good enough for flights", according to an airport spokesman. Sources from within the investigation commission have suggested that that the probable cause of the crash was that a frozen linkage. This linkage at some stage in the takeoff jammed a control surface, an aileron or the vertical rudder, in a deflected position, which turned the fuselage sideways after lift-off. The previous criticism by pilots of the Il-114 of lack of power on takeoff, may have then not allowed the pilot to compensate for the increased drag from the deflected control surfaces preventing the airplane from reaching a safe height after lift-off, causing the collision with the airport fence. Some sources claim that when the aircraft landed at Domodedovo four days before the ill-fated flight and was experiencing a problem with its power plant. Although the aircraft landed safely, the crew was unable to taxi to the appointed parking place and asked for an airport truck. The aircraft that crashed was the cargo version l-114T of the Il-114, which has yet to be awarded an airworthiness certificate. The airplane was therefore operating on the basis of restricted service (“operational trials") with the aircraft manufacturer. Only one carrier, Uzbekiston Havo Yullari, currently operate the type, three TV7-117S powered Il-114Ps, passenger aircraft. This was the second crash for the Il-114. Several years ago an experimental Il-114 prototype crashed at takeoff from the airdrome of LII, Gromov"s Flight Test and Research Institute in Zhukovsky near Moscow, due according to reports to a power plant failure, involving the propeller of a malfunctioning engine not movinginto a feathering position. A problem suggested as being the cause of the most recent crash in earlier reports.

Article ID: 1257