​​Flight without electricity

On September 16, 1971 Tupolev Tu-134 was a scheduled passenger flight from Budapest to Kiev. It was an aircraft in basic modification, produced in 1968. It belonged to a Hungarian airline.

The flight was overshadowed by poor weather conditions. It was reason of one hour delay of departure. Also, cloudy weather was at the Kiev airport Borispol. The vertical visibility was 80 meters and the horizontal visibility was 1700. On the fligth, the weather minimum was 150 by 1800 meters. The commander did not divert to an alternate aerodrome in Odessa, hoping for an improvement in weather conditions.

After the start of the descent for landing in Kiev, automaticly activated the emergency power supply scheme. The reason was the failure of all four generators. Now the on-board electrical systems were powered exclusively by batteries with an extremely limited supply of energy. After that, the fire system activation warning was triggered.

In such conditions, the PIC had to declare an emergency and demand an immediate direct landing approach. However, he did not. Therefore, the unsuspecting air traffic control sent the board to carry out the standard long scheme. Also, the commander gave him false data about his weather minimum - 60 by 600 meters. In addition, the crew did not turn off unnecessary electrical appliances. Therefore, for example, a working refrigerator and kitchen consumed a large amount of energy, depleting the batteries.

When approaching, the aircraft significantly deviated from the glide path and was sent to the second round. Next approach due to the premature fourth turn also ended in failure. There was not enough time for the third approach.

The batteries were completely discharged by that time. Navigation devices began to fail without power supply. Due to low clouds and poor visibility, the Hungarian crew lost their orientation in space. Therefore, nobody detected how the plane went into a steep decline. Pilots saw the approaching land only after leaving the clouds at an altitude of 50-70 meters . But they didn't manage to do anything.

28 kilometers north of the airport, at a speed of 500-580 km/h, Tupolev Tu-134 hit the ground with its right wing and crashed into a railway embankment. The plane was completely destroyed. All 41 passengers and 8 crew members on board were killed.

The investigation found that the cause of the incident was a fatal combination of several factors.

- The generators were serviceable. The activation of the emergency power supply scheme and the signal about the activation of the fire system occurred due to system failure.

- In Kiev at that time there were poor weather conditions, but the commander showed excessive self-confidence.

- The crew did not turn off unnecessary devices and did not declare an emergency.

As a result, the battery only lasted 29 minutes of flight. After turning off the power, the crew lost control of the situation.