Tragedy in the fog of politics

So, like this: in Novi Pazar, they had a five-day-old baby in critical condition. The child needed medical help from a better-equipped hospital, so the doctor and the anesthesiologist headed for Kraljevo - or Kragujevac, it is not clear yet. It was Friday, March 13, in the afternoon. A landslide then hit Raška and stopped traffic. Doctors asked for helicopter transport; the rescue and search aircraft on duty at Batajnica was a Mi 17 helicopter of the Serbian Army and the task was transferred to them immediately; they took off for Raska around 19:30. It is a very solid and - as we hear - excellently maintained helicopter with a top-notch and experienced crew, which has hundreds of similar successful flights behind it. The Mi 17 on duty has full tanks, all three, with 2800 liters of kerosene, which is enough to fly four times from Belgrade to Raška and back. Sometimes the amount of fuel is less, if a heavy load is expected, which was not the case here. The general consensus among aviation people and helicopter specialists is that it could not have run out of fuel on the return and there is no reason to doubt it. The rule in aviation is clear: never enough fuel - until there is an emergency landing; then there is always too much of it.

photo: phonet

QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS: The commander of the aircraft, Major Omer Mehić, co-pilot Captain Milovan Đukarić and two aircraft mechanics, arrived in Raška, received two doctors and an endangered baby and took off towards Belgrade. As far as can be found out, until Mladenovac everything went as it should; then the weather turned bad. Then it was probably time to think about an alternative destination, because the fog started to roll in the area of ​​the "Nikola Tesla" Airport near Surčin. What alternative destination? Kraljevo? Kragujevac, where the medical team was originally headed? Niche? Batajnica, which these pilots know very well, because it is their base? VMA on Banjica, with three platforms for landing helicopters and high enough so that there is no fog or less fog? Anywhere, as long as it has basic visibility. Later stories about Nikola Tesla Airport being superbly equipped for landing and take-off even under the worst conditions may be true, but they are irrelevant. This applies to airplanes, not helicopters, and not always to airplanes: on that fateful night, the airport was closed even to airplanes with full instrument landing gear, because the fog was too thick. Between 22:27 and 23:20 – three flights were diverted to Timisoara, and after 23:20 they returned to Surcin. Despite this, Tuesday's "Politika" has an article with the headline "Nikola Tesla Airport was safe for landing". It gives a terse statement about how many planes took off and landed between 21:00 PM and midnight; there is no mention of diverted flights that have taken place.

photo: phonet

Major Mehić's helicopter attempted to land twice during that time period; the third time he fell. Why did he try three times, when the situation was clearly unfavorable? It was clear for the first time that the fog was so thick that it was necessary to look for another place to land. We don't have an answer, nor do we expect one - for reasons we'll discuss. Various devices were later mentioned in the media, including light amplifiers, etc., but this is of no importance: light amplifiers do not help in the fog, just as turning on the lights at the Zvezda and Partizan stadiums does not help either; on the contrary, because strong light is reflected in the fog and makes it even more opaque, as every car driver knows. It remains to be seen whether those weak-minded ideas were ever realized and who came up with them, but we don't expect that information either. This helicopter had altimeters: two barometric and one radio altimeter; the assumption is that they were calibrated to the altitude of Surčin, but the pilot approaching in the fog, guided only by radio communication with radar observers, as we hear, is not in an enviable position. We still don't know if and what kind of GPS he had. GPS will give altitude, but absolute, from the sea; not relative, from the ground below. A helicopter in dense fog is every pilot's nightmare; the logical course of action is to look for a window of visibility from a safe height. At the same time, there are high power lines around Surčin, which are another nightmare for helicopter pilots; line pilots follow the approach lines and don't have to worry about it.

photo: phonet

Aircraft commander Mehić, therefore, found himself in a serious predicament: he had a dying baby, and he was lost in the fog. We do not know - and we are afraid that we will never find out - whether Major Mehić asked for an alternative place to land and what he was told; there should have been enough fuel even to Novi Sad or some place without fog. Any field next to the road where an ambulance van can come would be good too. The commander of the aircraft is the master of the flight and the aircraft while it is in the air and no one can order him: he is responsible for the aircraft, the crew and the passengers - and only him.

"SOME VERY POWERFUL PEOPLE": Other aviation wisdom says that takeoff is a matter of free choice; landing is mandatory. Now is the time for a digression. The landing of a helicopter with a critically endangered baby right at the airport in Surčin was - as we can see - announced by certain media in advance. Now everyone is ashamed to admit it, but we can assume that some teams were ready on the spot. The editor of the printed matter "Hello" ruefully admitted that some "very powerful people" told him that the helicopter had landed and that the baby was in the hospital; the Beta agency slipped as well, but the editor-in-chief later interpreted it as a misinterpretation of a doctor's statement that they were ready to receive the baby and the fatigue of the night shift journalists; the same information appeared on the internet portals of important media; no one will say who told them that at a time when Major Mehić still doesn't know what to do with himself and the helicopter. They will not say and they must not say, because if they could, they would. "Some very powerful people," as the man said.

photo: phonet

A little reminder: in 1934, some Belgrade newspapers also reported that King Aleksandar Karađorđević had happily arrived from Marseilles to Paris, and the man ended up in the prosecutor's office, shot. In the late nineties, a Zagreb newspaper reported that US Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown landed happily in Dubrovnik, and the poor man died when the government's 737 crashed into a hill while trying to land on Ćilipi in a storm. The lesson is: first see, then report, but years pass, "some very powerful people" insist, so you refuse, etc. During the night, corrections were published, front pages were changed and whatever else was being done - but it was too late: the news broke. The discomfort from that noise is still felt on Tuesday, and will continue to be so, as far as we can see. If "Nikola Tesla" Airport was "safe for landing", as they say, why didn't Major Mehić land safely? And why doesn't anyone ask?

ON THE SPOT: The next day we will find out that the contact with the helicopter, ie. crew, was lost around 22:31 p.m. Friday night. That contact was by mobile phone, says a senior Army officer. Why wasn't it a normal VHF or UHF radio link? Because the radio connection is being listened to and recorded? Say something. The fog has somewhat lifted in the meantime and the planes from Timisoara are returning, but the helicopters are nowhere to be found. They did not find the wreck until around two in the morning on Saturday, March 14, and they completed the "investigation" on foot (there was deep mud), on the spot around eight in the morning. There is only one photograph, with a telephoto lens from afar: the wreckage turned on its left side, next to it a few meters away is a cylindrical object that could be either the tail of a helicopter or a tank that has fallen off; it is not clear. All five rotor blades were apparently torn from the rotor head, which only means that they were in motion at the time of contact with the ground; even in a fast rotation, which would suggest that the engines were working - or that the pilot had attempted an autorotation maneuver. This is when the helicopter loses power, so the pilot performs a certain maneuver that rotates the rotor as it falls through the air and before hitting the ground, raises the collective command and increases lift using the inertia of the rotor, so we don't bother with technical finesse. The scene of the wreckage and the fate of the crew and passengers indicate that the helicopter hit the ground at a considerable speed; a successful autorotation maneuver would break the landing gear and cause more severe damage, but not like this. Close-up pictures would show damage and marks on the ground, from which more precise conclusions could be drawn, but we don't have any pictures. It is not clear whether or not there was a fire; experts say that the fire was not mandatory and that if there had been a fire, the wreckage would have been found earlier, since it was lying one kilometer from the highway and about two kilometers from the runway. The amount of fuel left - if the rumors are true - would guarantee quite a flame. The wreckage does not appear to have been burned in a large fire of that type.

All these and many other questions appeared in public immediately; the aviation community knows each other and is happy to communicate on social media and otherwise. They are not to be joked with, because they are united, they know what they are talking about and they are brave. Immediately, however, without waiting for the first findings, the government launches a hysterical counter-offensive against the still unspoken objections, and this finally releases the worm of suspicion into the public. Aleksandar Vučić, more arrogant and arrogant than ever before, gets angry at the press conference: what should we do, not to send a helicopter, and then blame us (always second person plural; they know who they are) that we didn't want to save the baby because other religions? This is especially interesting: since when does a five-day-old baby have a "religion" and where did Vučić get such an unusual idea? First of all, no one objected to the helicopter taking off; and it should take off, as always. If he hadn't taken off for who knows what justifiable reason (breakdown, weather, etc., we don't have a helicopter that can do it), no one would have asked the question: that's life, it can't always do everything. Namely, Vučić anticipates a possible remark in accordance with his own radical way of thinking and that is obvious. He replaces the thesis: it is not about the "religion" of a five-day-old baby; it's about a failed advertising sensation, because where else does a hint of triumph come from certain media? Vučić shouts that he "doesn't give" ministers Gasić and Lončar, and no one has even asked him for them yet. He must know something that we don't. What happened was the growing suspicion that those two were expecting a baby from Novi Pazar ready, with ready TV crews. When asked where those two were that night, Vučić says that he knows "where they were at three o'clock" that night, but does not say where they were.

The problem slowly boils down to another piece of aviation wisdom: landing is mandatory. Why did Major Mehić try to land on Surčin three times in such fog, without looking for an alternative destination? Or maybe he was looking for an alternative? We don't know; they contacted with mobile phones, and not with the standard and mandatory VHF and UHF radio connection, which is later listened to on a tape recorder. Maybe the BIA and VBA have cell phone recordings of those conversations, but we'll never hear them, don't worry. And now who will convince the public ("enemies, Mishko's mercenaries, those paid by European bosses", etc.) that we are not dealing here with the disastrous outcome of a marketing operation, prematurely sold out? That everything went well; that ministers took pictures with a baby of the wrong "religion" that night, and then appeared the next day with the usual extras, in flight overalls, of course, in front of TV cameras in the Government - good luck, let them be there, as long as they are alive and healthy - all would be fine. It turned out, however, unfortunately, otherwise; why? Because of the insistence on landing in Surčin fog, because TV crews are waiting? Well, who else trusts them with anything?

the plane on flight JU375 departs for Timisoara after circling. Friday, March 13, 2015, 22.47:XNUMX p.m

Following the records on the site Flightradar24.on, the question arises whether the planes that were near the Belgrade airport on Friday evening were diverted to Timisoara because of the fog, or at the moment when contact with the helicopter was lost, i.e. when it was clear that the accident had happened.

Belgrade Airport has the so-called category IIIb, i.e. the western arm of the runway (RWY 12) is equipped for the landing of commercial aircraft in dense fog. On Friday, around 22.30:1100 p.m., two planes stopped landing right in front of the airport itself. Previously, the plane from Stuttgart circled for a while, and then landed anyway. Immediately after it, the flight from Prague landed, but not the planes from Zurich and Milan - they were kept at altitudes of 1500 and 20 m, circled for about XNUMX minutes and left for Timisoara. Was it really a sudden and so drastic worsening of weather conditions that the planes had to abandon the final approach, or was the airport area "cleared" because of the helicopter - either to allow it to land more easily or because contact had already been made lost?

The timetable from "Flightradar" looks something like this:

22.04 h: Aeroflot's plane from Moscow landed properly at "Nikola Tesla". Immediately before it, three more planes (from Ljubljana, Vienna and Munich) landed without any delays.

22.10 h: Air Serbia from Stuttgart (flight JU345) begins to make several circles above Šimanovci, at an altitude of 860 m, i.e. only 15 km from the runway, but still lands around 22.20:XNUMX p.m. Was this the time of the first attempt to land the ill-fated helicopter?

22.13 h: Air Serbia flight (JU375) from Zurich is located 40 km from the Surčin airport, above Ruma, at an altitude of 1800 m, where the circling begins.

22.23 h: the same plane arrives above Šimanovci (at an altitude of 1160 m) and there again enters the "holding pattern" (circling). Maybe it's just waiting for flight JU615 from Prague to land, whose end of flight is not visible on Flightradar, but which, according to the website of the "Nikola Tesla" Airport, landed At 22.27 h.

22.28 h: Air Serbia (JU545) from Milan also starts circling above Šimanovci at an altitude of about 1500 m. It is now certain that there is a problem at the airport or in its surroundings. Around 22.45 h both planes, both 375 and 545 depart for Timisoara.

At the same time, a little further from the Surčin airport, At 22.25 hrs Air Serbia flight no. 305 from Brussels, starts circling over Čelarevo, Futog and Bački Petrovac at an altitude of 7300m.

In the interval from 22.25 to 22.50 h four more planes that were approaching Belgrade enter a "holding pattern" above Bački Petrovac at altitudes between 7000 and 8000 m (Air Serbia flights 305, 315, 405 and Lufthansa LH1724) with the fact that the plane from Brussels (JU305) leaves for Timisoara, and the others continue to circulate.

Od 23.05 h: the planes slowly stop circling over Vojvodina and begin the approach towards Belgrade, where they land without further delay at 23.15 (flight 315 from Paris).

After that, flight operations of aircraft arrivals and departures from "Nikola Tesla" take place normally.

U 00.40 h flight 375 takes off from Timisoara and finally lands in Surcin at one o'clock after midnight. Fifteen minutes later, "Milan" flight 545 arrives, followed by "Brussels" flight 1.30 at 305:XNUMX.

I. Hrašovec