The 76th Separate Guards Leningrad Red Banner Military Transport Squadron in its best years had 29 "Anteyevs" in service at once. The squadron's vehicles and crews took part in many landmark operations. So, in 1982, board 09338 transferred the Salyut orbital station to Baikonur. Two years later, Antei transported several Mi-8s for Ethiopia, and in 1986 delivered tons of lead and equipment to eliminate the accident to the Chernobyl region.
Unfortunately, in the work of the 76th squadron itself, it was not possible to avoid disasters. The reason for one of them was the "thermal runaway" of the NKBN-25 No.4 storage batteries, which led to the burning of a nearby fuel line and the ignition of kerosene. It happened on June 6, 1980 on the route from Baghdad to Chkalovsky at an altitude of 5700 meters. A fire broke out in the right fairing of the landing gear and in a matter of minutes, suffocating the cargo hold with suffocating smoke. By that time, the An-22 (side No. 06-01) was already over Moscow, and the crew commander decided to land on the runway of Vnukovo airport. After unsuccessful attempts to extinguish the fire, according to the instructions, the car was transferred to an emergency power supply mode, which completely de-energized the plane. Without navigation and communication, with an unreleased landing gear, the commander of the crew, Major Shigaev V. I., in order to avoid casualties and destruction, turned the Antey away from Vnukovo into an open field. At a speed of 290 km / h, the giant sat down on the fuselage, demolished a reinforced concrete pillar by the cabin, fell into a ravine and caught fire. The commander, flight engineer Sviridov A. A. and translator Dobrolyubova V. R. P were killed from the crew.
Airplane model showing the features of cargo placement
After the tragedy of aircraft No. 06-01, the battery compartment was equipped with fire detectors and a hatch through which the fire extinguisher could be quickly discharged. A similar situation was repeated ten years later in 1990, when the batteries on the previously mentioned camouflage "Parrot" An-22A No. 05-10 got hot and swollen. The fire was avoided, but the flight mission was disrupted. [/justify]
Interior decoration "Anthea"
The nineties became one of the most unfortunate periods for the An-22. On November 11, 1992, the first catastrophe in the decade happened - Antey with side No. 06-10 with an overload of 20 tons fell immediately after takeoff near the Migalovo airfield. It was a commercial flight to Yerevan, with the crew of Major I. Masyutin 33 people, including children, on board. In addition to serious overload, one of the causes of the disaster was the icing of the fuselage. Two years later, already working in the interests of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, An-22 # 04-08 (aircraft commander - Major A. Kredin) fell, loaded to capacity with military vehicles from the German Templin. The tragic events developed as follows. The car took off on January 19 from the Rostov-on-Don airfield, while the aircraft did not undergo anti-icing treatment. After a few minutes of flight, "Antey" began to roll onto the wing, reaching critical angles of attack. The emergency landing failed, the plane hit the ground with the wing plane and collapsed. Of the crew and three passengers, only three people survived.
Baltimore disaster
The last An-22 crash happened on December 28, 2010 with RA - 09343 after takeoff from the Baltimore airfield in Voronezh. The aircraft was involved in the transfer of a MiG-31 fighter for the Military Aviation University. An hour after the flight back from Voronezh to Migalovo, the giant fell in the area of the village of Maloe Skuratovo, Chernsky district, Tula region. Eyewitnesses said that the crater from the fall of the plane reached a depth of five and a diameter of twenty meters, and fragments of the car were found at a distance of 700 meters from the point of impact.
"Antey" who died in 2010 in the Tula region
There were 12 people on board - two An-22 crews. An analysis of the flight recorders showed that at an altitude of 7176 meters, the plane abruptly went to the left bank with a slip, which was developing at a speed of 10 degrees per second. Antey began to descend rapidly along a spiral trajectory. Emergency measures by the crew did not lead to anything, and the plane fell into a tailspin. At the same time, the overloads were such that the car began to collapse while still in the air. As a result, "Antey" at a gigantic speed and almost vertically entered the ground. The reason was the failure of the control system, which led to a malfunction of the electromechanism of the autotriming system. It also became known that the crew neglected the requirements and did not report any failures in the control system of the same aircraft, which had been noticed two weeks earlier. The instruction of the crew of the An-22 pilot also did not contain any information regarding actions in the event of a failure of the trim system. The crew of the aircraft was posthumously nominated for state awards for withdrawing the falling aircraft from the villages of the Chernsk region into the forest, which excluded civilian casualties. In the previous parts of the cycle about the "flying cathedral" An-22, the history of the operation of the Soviet military transport giant is described in more detail.
The moments in the life of a hero leaving the stage
The giant goes down in history
The An-22 at the Tashkent aircraft plant was removed from the production line by the younger brother of the Il-76, which appeared in 1973. "Ilyushin" was distinguished by a good carrying capacity of 47 tons, which in many respects opposed it to "Antey". The 76th also has jet engines, which give the aircraft a higher cruising speed in comparison with the turboprop "Antey". The Il-76 turned out to be a more profitable vehicle, since the only advantage of the “flying cathedral” was its spacious cargo compartment, which was not always in demand. An-124 "Ruslan" with its unprecedented cargo abilities pressed down on our hero from above. The calendar service life of "Antey" ended in 2013, but a year earlier the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation extended the service life until 2020. At the same time, negotiations were underway with the Ukrainian "Antonov" on the modernization of machines and the extension of the service life up to 40 years and even up to 50 years. But well-known events made it impossible.
One-of-a-kind camouflage "Antey"
At the Air Force airbases, 22 aircraft are now stored, six of which are of limited validity. It should be noted that Antey could use its full potential in isolated cases - this is how the specifics of transportation in peacetime developed. The average load was only 22.5 tons, and most often these were far from oversized loads that could be transferred on the more compact Il-76. Most of the aircraft for several decades of operation have not flown even 5000 hours. Both earlier and now the Ministry of Defense has no particular desire to spend money on maintaining the entire An-22 fleet in proper condition. Therefore, some of the cars are slowly dying in parking lots. This happened with the "Antaeus" numbered RA-08833 and RA-08835, which in six years turned into junk at the Ivanovo airfield. Ukraine wanted to buy these aircraft for commercial operation in the mid-2000s, but the deal did not work out. At the same time, Antonov Airlines quite successfully operate their only Antey, which has occupied a certain niche in world air transportation.
Ukrainian "Antey" as part of "Antonov Airlines"
A large fleet of heavy transporters would hardly become profitable - the market for the transportation of oversized cargo by air is not capacious enough to saturate both Antonov Airlines and Volga-Dnepr with An-124 with orders. The commercial use of such giants is possible only if the development and production are financed by government agencies. Not a single aircraft manufacturer even dreamed of building so many large transport aircraft for the benefit of civilian traffic. The costs will never be recouped. Moreover, even super-spacious passenger planes are gradually leaving the scene - first Boeing announced the imminent retirement of the 747, and later Airbus curtailed the production of the unprofitable 380. Neither the former nor the latter are planning any successors.
The An-22 is not unique in this situation: the giants of the Ruslana, after depleting all possible resources in Volga-Dnepr, will also go to museums and to be butchered. What will replace the unique technique? The Americans will never give away the C-5 Gelaxi for commercial transportation, so the niche in the market for super-heavy transport aircraft for the civilian sector will most likely disappear. Of course, until, in the future, Russia will saturate its Air Force with new-generation vehicles and bring the surplus to the market. But this, taking into account modern realities, is hard to believe.
An-22 for us will remain a monument to the unconditional engineering genius of the Soviet Union with its unique technical solutions and indescribable charisma.
