MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Viktor Litovkin.) Admiral Vladimir Masorin must have still been in high spirits after promotion to Navy Commander when bad news broke from the North Atlantic, where 22 Su-33 (Flanker) fighter jets on board the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov were conducting training operations.
One fighter fell off the deck on landing, the pilot ejected and was rescued from the water five minutes later.
The Navy press service said the jets' landing had been normal - arresting gear (designed to halt the aircraft's forward motion) caught the fighter properly -- but it snapped, leaving the 40,000-lb plane careening out of control at 100 mph towards the ship's superstructure with no way to slow down - mind you, there are no dragchutes.
Not that the ship is unfit to handle such emergencies or the pilot was not prepared. A typical navy pilot is rigorously trained to take off immediately and execute what is known in aviation circles as a go-around. Naval aircraft are known to land with a minimum of fuel, which in and of itself can be a dangerous situation. However, the ship's flight operations officers told Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Korneyev to eject as the Flanker was headed for a 3,700-ft watery grave that would have a salvage operation unsuccessful and in any case cost-prohibitive.
The aircraft carried no weapons or munitions but some of its systems are so secretive that even the faintest prospect of seeing them fall into the wrong (that is, non-Russian) hands makes the military consider destruction - possibly by antisubmarine depth charges - as a first option.
Kuznetsov experts, of whom the most senior is naval aviation and air defense head Lieutenant General Yury Antipov, are already decoding the data from the Su-33's salvaged flight recorder in hopes of finding the real reasons for the crash.
Though news agencies were quick to quote an unidentified source at Naval Headquarters referring to the possibility of human error, investigators say it is premature to speculate until the recording's evidence clarifies the situation.
Sergei Melnikov, a Sukhoi test pilot who pioneered takeoff and landing aboard the Admiral Kuznetsov (which earned him a Hero of Russia Medal), told RIA Novosti he did not believe the human error theory. He also cautioned against jumping to conclusions at this point, because of the lack of information. He did say he would never blame the pilot.
One reason to absolve Korneyev is that carrier takeoff and landing - especially landing - is never routine and sometimes involves luck, rather than piloting skills. The other is that Korneyev, even in such an emergency, proved himself as a competent, highly trained and professional pilot. By guiding the fighter away from the superstructure, he not only saved his own life but also the lives of the sailors on the deck of the carrier. These actions are worthy of a medal, not a reprimand!
Last but certainly not least, the pilot - who has seven years of naval aviation experience - just did not have enough speed and space. Emergency takeoff can only be successful as long as the aircraft is close enough to the leading edge of the 600-ft flight deck and is accelerating fast enough to safely takeoff. The Kuznetsov crash is unique because usually the restraining wire breaks early due to excessive landing speed, etc. Thereby it minimizes the retarding effect and gives the pilot enough reaction time to abort the landing and takeoff again.
Melnikov pointed the finger at the faulty arresting gear. Spotting wear on exposed portions of the arresting wire by deck landing crews is easy and therefore hardly ever happens, he said. However, a major portion of it is wound on a spring-driven recoiling drum where worn-out sections could well have been overlooked.
Specialists play down the accident as one of usual though unpleasant circumstances. Yes, one can expect that such costly accidents will happen occasionally during an intensive training campaign, no matter how long you train in the classroom, on land, and even at sea. Experienced pilots will tell you that even though an aircraft is of the same make and model, they all have a slightly different feel and characteristics. You only get to know your plane well enough when you have a Panamax tanker of spent fuel under your belt.
In the Navy, like in F1, pilots are more valuable than racecars. The pilot is alive and well. Other wounds heal.
