Autopilots gone wrong

AEROFLOT 593 set off on March 22, 1994, for a 14-hour flight from Moscow to Hong Kong with 75 people on board. Thirty-nine minutes after its take-off, it reached its cruising altitude. The plane was flying on autopilot, and everything was going according to plan. The pilot in command (PIC), Viktorovich Danilov, was in the passenger cabin, resting. Back-up PIC, Yaroslav Vladimirovich Kudrinsky, was sitting in the left seat. Co-pilot Igor Vladimirovich Piskarev was in the right seat. All pilots were highly experienced.

Take your kids to work

Kudrinsky’s two children were on the flight: 12-year-old daughter Yana and 16-year-old son Eldar. Another pilot, Vladimir Makarov, who was flying as a passenger, took them to the cockpit. Kudrinsky invited Yana to sit in the left seat where he had been sitting and to “fly the airplane a bit… Go ahead, take the controls.” Kudrinsky then set the autopilot to make a slight turning manoeuvre. The plane gently turned left, then right, back to the original heading. This gave Yana the impression she was causing the plane to turn.

Then Eldar took the seat. Kudrinsky again set the autopilot. Eldar asked his father if he could turn the control wheel. Kudrinsky said “yes”. But Eldar applied more force than his sister, turning the control wheel so that the plane would turn at a 15-degree angle, while the autopilot was trying to hold it at 5 degrees.