На avherald описание от португальских органов расследования. Интересно что целились изначально на правую полосу, а сели на левую.
The GPIAA described the sequence of events:
The flight KC1388 had as final destination the operator base at Almaty, Kazakhstan, with a refueling stopover at Minsk, Belarus.
On board there were three crewmembers (a captain and two copilots), and three technicians from the operator.
Immediately after takeoff, with adverse meteorological conditions, the crew felt that the aircraft was not responding adequately to the commands, developing oscillatory wing movements.
The crew, using all the aircraft control resources for its 3 axis, immediately tried to counter the movements, however without understanding the cause for the flight instability and without being able to engage the autopilot.
Realising that they were without effective control of the aircraft, only being able – with considerable effort – to minimize the oscillatory movements, with high structural loads involved during some recovery manoeuvres and using crossed commands.
The crew immediately declared emergency while trying to diagnose the cause for the abnormal roll of the aircraft, continuing to struggle to gain its control, having no malfunction indication from the aircraft systems, just the continuous alerts for abnormal flight attitudes.
The situation did not improve, and the performed trajectories caused the aircraft and the persons on board to sustain intense G-forces, and causing the aircraft complete loss of control for some moments at multiple instances.
Considering the situation criticality, the crew requested several times for headings in order to be able to reach the sea for ditching, not being able, however, to keep the intended headings.
The crew then started a team work basis, discussing options with the third crewmember (copilot in the jumpseat) and trying to communicate with the technicians on board, to explore hypothesis and define an action plan.
Despite no warnings for system failures, the crew decided to activate the flight controls direct mode (elevators, rudder and spoilers), where the flight control module (FCM) is removed from the flight surfaces command chain, which are then controlled in a direct relationship with the pilots’ inputs on the yoke.
The situation improved considerably, however, without restoring normal operation and keeping the difficulties to control the aircraft roll-axis.
The crew realised that the ailerons were behaving erratically and therefore any command for the aircraft roll was kept to its minimum.
Having gained some control of the situation, the crew flew East, searching for better weather conditions and started to follow the flight plan defined by the air traffic control for an emergency landing in a suitable airport, with good weather and physical conditions to deal with the sustaining aircraft control difficulties.
At this moment, when the pilots were able to keep altitude and heading, and had sufficient visual references, the aircraft was joined by a pair of F-16 fighters from the Portuguese Air Force, which assisted in guiding to Beja airport, which had been selected in the meantime as the best emergency landing option. After two non-stabilised approaches, the aircraft managed to land safely on runway 19L at the third approach. The intended runway was 19R, but due to drift, they finally managed to land on the left runway.
All on board were physically and emotionally shaken, one of the passengers sustaining a leg injury.
Still pending confirmation from the undertaking of additional testing, the evidence that was possible to collect at the time of drafting this Note suggests the existence of failures in the aircraft roll controls configuration, consistent with possible disturbance during maintenance actions.
Пс
Интересно будет ли самолёт ещё летать, после упоминаемых постоянных маневров с большими перегрузками.