Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801

Flight Flight 2801 was chartered on behalf of Arktikugol, which operated mines at the two company towns of Barentsburg and Pyramiden in Svalbard. The aircraft was a Tupolev Tu-154M, with registration RA-85621, and serial number 86A 742, manufactured on 14 January 1987. The crew consisted of captain Evgeny Nikolaevich Nikolaev (aged 44), co-pilot Boris Fedorovich Sudarev (aged 58), navigator Igor Petrovich Akimov (aged 50), flight engineer Anatoly Matveevich Karapetrov (aged 38), five cabin crew members, and two technicians to service the plane during the stopover. The captain and navigator had previously landed at Svalbard Airport, but only runway 10; the co-pilot had not. The aircraft left Vnukovo Airport at 04:44 UTC (08:44 MSD). Estimated flight time was three and a half hours, and alternative airports were Murmansk Airport and Severomorsk-3 in Murmansk Oblast. Recovery with Operafjellet, the location of the accident, in the background The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre of Northern Norway received a message about the crash at 10:30 CEST (8:30 UTC) and the search-and-rescue service was immediately deployed. This included seven Norwegian aircraft that were in the area. The area had bad weather with a low cloud height, resulting in difficult searching conditions. The aircraft was found at 12:06 CEST at Operafjellet, east of Svalbard Airport. Most of the aircraft was located on the mountain's plateau, although some debris had slid down a vertical cliff and was scattered along the valley and partially covered by an avalanche. Rescue workers and medics from Longyearbyen Hospital arrived at 12:36, and quickly established that no one survived. ==Investigation==

Agreements between Norwegian and Russian authorities were made on 31 August, where Norway resumed full responsibility for the recovery and investigation, but Russian help was accepted. To allow the Russian workers access from the morning of 1 September, the crew was allowed to fly in and establish a base camp, but no work was to be done until Norwegian supervisors arrived in the morning. However, two people were observed at the wreck at about 20:00 CEST, who were brought to the governor's offices for questioning. As they were both members of the Russian team, it was decided that the base would be disbanded. Fog was still on the plateau on 1 September, but by 15:00 CEST it was possible to fly a team there by helicopter. Because the fog stayed, the team retained work until 03:00 CEST in the night. In the following days, the fog lifted, making work and transport easier. By 5 September, all bodies had been recovered and the work at the plateau could be terminated. The recovery in the valley was completed two days later. The accident resulted in about 40 journalists staying in Svalbard to cover the story. The Norwegian authority's costs related to the investigation and other activities related to the accident were estimated at 30 million Norwegian krone (NOK). All identification of people was performed in Tromsø, as a cooperation between Troms Police District, National Criminal Investigation Service, and the University Hospital of North Norway. By 18 September, all people had been identified, and the bodies were transported to Russia and Ukraine on 20 September after a short memorial in Tromsøhallen. An autopsy was performed on all crew members, without finding any abnormalities. The official responsibility for investigating the incident lay with the Air Accident Investigation Board/Norway (AAIB/N), although the investigation and report was a close cooperation with the Interstate Aviation Committee and to a lesser extent, the Federal Air Transport Agency. AAIB/N had the primary responsibility for investigations at the crash site, cooperation with the Norwegian police and the Norwegian Civil Aviation Administration, and writing the report. IAC was responsible for handling the investigations in Russia, the reading of the cockpit voice recorder, the flight data recorder, the relationship with Vnukovo Airlines and a test flight. Both agencies agreed that English was to be the language of the final report; English is one of the ICAO languages. Cause The official investigation concluded that the flight, regarded as a controlled flight into terrain, was caused by pilot errors and that no fault was found with the aircraft. Contributing factors causing the accident were lack of a procedure for offset localizer approach for setting approach course on the HSIs. Thus, both HSIs were set incorrectly, which along with the course deviation indicator hinted that the plane was being blown to the left and needed to adjust course to the right. Because he was in a stressed situation, the navigator set the GPS in the wrong mode. He also did not have sufficient time to recheck his work, allowing mistakes to happen, and his work was not monitored by the pilots. As the navigator was overworked, it was inappropriate for the first officer to transfer the responsibility of lateral control to him. The AFIS air controller has a different role in Norway from in Russia, and the crew were not aware that they were being given information and advice, rather than orders. Communication with AFIS was left with the navigator, which is a breach of norms. Communication between air control and the crew was problematic, since the crew lacked sufficient English skills. The pilot in command had insufficient crew resource management knowledge. After the crew decided to carry out the approach to Runway 28, a new approach briefing was not accomplished. The aircraft overshot the approach centerline when turning inbound, because they did not try to intercept the outbound track from Advent. The crew showed a lack of situational awareness following their uncertainty of the aircraft position in relation to LLZ 28, caused by indications on the HSIs. Situational awareness was also reduced because the pilots did not have a chart in front of them at all times. The crew were not aware that they could check the aircraft location in relation to the centerline with a VDF (VHF direction finder). The crew probably put too much emphasis on the indications displayed by the GPS. The aircraft descended into mountainous terrain without control over the lateral navigation. Despite uncertainty and disagreement in the group, the approach was not abandoned, as the aircraft should have climbed to a safe altitude while the problem was solved. ==Aftermath==

two years later, in 1998; until 2007 it remained largely abandoned with most of its infrastructure and buildings still in place. On 20 September, the surviving relatives of each decedent received 2 million Russian rubles (about US$40,000) for each person who died in the accident. Ukrainian relatives stated to Norwegian media that they had not received information about the cause and other issues surrounding the accident. At the time, Ukraine was experiencing very high unemployment, and Arktikugol offered wages many times what was then offered in Ukraine. Many miners not only had to support their immediate family, but also relatives. Vnukovo Airlines stated on Ukrainian television that the relatives would receive US$20,000 per person killed. About a year after the accident, all relatives had been offered US$20,000, but about two-thirds of them chose not to accept the amount, and instead started a process to sue the insurance company. Their lawyer, Gunnar Nerdrum, stated that according to both Norwegian and Russian law, they could demand at least US$140,000. In February 1998, the Norwegian Ministry of Justice stated that the relatives did not have a right to occupational injury compensation from the Norwegian National Insurance. Because of the Svalbard Treaty, the archipelago is an economic free zone and Arktikugol is exempt from paying social insurance, so its employees did not have a right to Norwegian benefits. Had this been the case, widows would have received about NOK 600,000 per worker. By 1998, a few of the relatives had accepted the US$20,000 compensation, while the rest of them were planning to sue both the airline's insurance company and Arktikugol. Among the issues in the case, which took place at Nord-Troms District Court, was whether the accident was to be considered a working accident, and thus would result in injury compensation from the mining company. In November, it was decided that the Ukrainians needed to make a guarantee for NOK 2.5 million to run the case, which they could not afford. They, therefore, had no alternative but to accept the proposal from the insurance company. In June 1999, the parties agreed on a settlement, where the compensation was not disclosed to the public. It was later disclosed that the settlement was about three times the initial offer from the insurance company. In 1999, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs established a scholarship to help children who lost a parent in the accident to take senior secondary and tertiary education. ==Notes==