During the investigation of the crash of the Tu-154 military aircraft that was flown to Syria, which collapsed in the sea on December 25, 2016 after its departure from Sochi, it turned out that the aircraft was overloaded. At the same time, the crew did not know about the overload and acted on the basis of the permissible take-off weight of the liner, writes the newspaper. Ru ".

At the beginning of the route, taking off from the Moscow airdrome Chkalovsky, the take-off weight of the aircraft, together with 24 tons of fuel loaded into it, was 99.6 tons. Despite the fact that the load was already above the norm, the deviation of 1.6 tons was insignificant, the plane took off without much trouble. In Adler, no one left the plane, no additional cargo, but the liner was refilled to the maximum. When flying from Adler in the tanks of the aircraft was 35.6 tons of fuel. Thus, instead of the normative 98 tons, the take-off weight was more than 110 tons.

After the flight from Adler, the plane should be turned off first to the right, then to the left, and then take a course for Latakia, at the air base of Khmeimim. Judging by the data of the recorders, the problems began even during the ascent. Thus, the separation of the aircraft from the Adler runway occurred only at the 37th second after the start of the takeoff, at a speed of 320 km / h, the pitch angle was from 4 to 6 degrees. Experts assess these parameters as evidence that the aircraft has hardly climbed into the air.

Further actions of the crew can be assessed as very rash to control an overloaded aircraft. At insufficient altitude and speed, the flaps were cleaned. Then, as follows from the records of the voice recorder, the co-pilot asked the commander for permission to harvest mechanization, but the latter did not reply. Probably, the co-pilot regarded the commander's silence as a sign of agreement. Since the beginning of the harvesting of mechanization, the lift of an overloaded liner began to fall sharply. At an altitude of 200 meters, the commander made an unexpected move, giving the steering wheel away from himself, and then suddenly taking it on himself again - as a result, the liner lost an already small height and fell into a roll of 30 degrees.

Since there was no height margin for the aircraft, the crew could no longer pull it out of the roll. After a few seconds at a speed of 540 km / h the liner touched the left wing with water. In the collision with water in such conditions, the aircraft instantly collapsed, its fragments were scattered over a large area. So experts describe the last flight of the Tu-154, which took only 74 seconds.

Two months before the disaster, the deceased crew together with the experienced commander Roman Volkov had already produced on this car a take-off from the same runway in Adler. And then there were no abnormal situations. The assumption that the commander of the Tu-154 did not know about the initial overload of his aircraft explains the fuel overflow at the Adler airport. If the crew knew the exact weight loaded in the Chkalovsky property, fuel would be filled less, experts say..

Probably, it could be caused by a relatively small but significant cargo in terms of its weight.

Crashed early in the morning on December 25, Tu-154 was carrying the artists of the Alexandrov Song and Dance Ensemble to the Russian base Khmeimim in Syria, who were to give a New Year's concert there. They were accompanied by the film crews of the First Channel, NTV and "Stars". Total as a result of the crash of the liner killed 92 people: 84 passengers and 8 crew members.