When the Soviet Navy Lost 16 Admirals in a Single Accident
 

February 7, 1981: The Tu-104 Crash at Pushkin.

Utterly amazing and when you find out why this accident happened you'll be both "amazed and not surprise" at the same time.
Looking back it's truly astounding that we're all still here considering people like this were (are?) calling the shots.

- There are some really important lessons here.

(It's best to turn on subtitles when watching this)

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Wow....over a ton of front to back unsecured rolling paper on take-off!

oops

Not only that but 2,500 lubs of news paper stock on two rolls found it's way to the back of the plane from closer to the front just before rotation.

Reminds me of this crash.

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A couple of things.

First, great video: Part Onion, part history, a lot of Soviet hubris without irony.

Second. The Soviet Navy in the late 70's early 80's was a maritime dumpster fire. Their subs made more noise than a frat party...Helen Keller could track them. Their surface ships rarely left port; when they did it was like the Joad Family headed West only the Joad's had better weapons and were faster.

Third and perhaps lastly. When a pilot with over, if I remember correctly, 6000 hours in a plane that has crashed more than it flew, recommends taking off some swag, or tying it down, so we can all get back to Vladivostok and pretend to know what we are doing, I think it best not to belittle him.

The crew did not deserve to die...the rest, да.

[QUOTE=Bob Kontak;11470825]Not only that but 2,500 lubs of news paper stock on two rolls found it's way to the back of the plane from closer to the front just before rotation.


That's what I was trying to say with my comment.
I prob didn't explain enough.

Plus all the sausage!

Nose heavy planes fly poorly

Tail heavy planes fly once.

[QUOTE=stevej37;11470901] I knew exactly what you were saying. I just had to use the term lubs so that was the real reason for the post.

Have had beer.

IIRC: Yankee class sank off coast of North Carolina in 70's. An Oscar caught fire in the late 80s and again in 2013ish.

An Alfa had a reactor fire in port in the late 80s/early 90s.

And that's what I can recall of top of head. Pretty sure there were a lot more. The term 'stay at home navy' comes to mind.

The paper rolls rolling to the back of the plane actually caused the rotation, not the other way around.

[QUOTE=Bob Kontak;11470925][QUOTE=stevej37;11470901]

I knew exactly what you were saying. I just had to use the term lubs so that was the real reason for the post.

Have had beer.[/QUOTE


Gotcha...same here...2 hearted is the way to go!!

Yep. They said there was no manual pressure (per black box) imparted to the yolks when it rotated.

They were a mess. After my first long cruise in 1985, I flew off off a Frigate assigned to a DESRON tracking Russian subs off of Alaska.

Reagan had done something and the Russians countered with subs off Alaska. Missiles in Europe I think.

Honestly, tactical simulator hops back in North Island were more of a challenge than the real world where Russians subs were concerned: The term is CZ, or Convergence Zone, an anti-submarine warfare term describing sound that travels deep in the water into "zones", roughly 30 miles apart underwater.

We were getting 3rd CZ contact on the underwater Animal House...90 miles. Unheard of.

"You make me want to shout, put your hands up..."

My second cruise in 1987 I don't think they left port.

Seahawks, on the 90 mile CZ pickups, was that with the helo's dipping sonar, bouys, the ships bow sonar or a tail?
Or was some PO1st sticking his head in the water?

Thanks
Les

Very interesting video. Thanks for posting.

Did they ever get their act together? Is the current Russian navy any good?

I always got the impression that the Russian just threw meat bags at a problem.

Here is a link - CZ discussion a few pages down...saves me some writing!

https://harpgamer.com/harpforum/topic/3461-tactics-101-anti-submarine-warfare-asw-part-1/

The SH-60B was not a dipper. The new version, the SH-60R does have a system called ALFS and can dip. ALFS is an excellent tool. I have never flown it.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1633002950.jpg

In those days, the Frigate I was one had TACTAS 19 (https://man.fas.org/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/an-sqr-19.htm), a towed array that was excellent...that was a main reason we were able to get 3rd CZ with our deployed sonobuoys.

Tracking passively was the goal so we did not go active, or "ping".

Among the many missions of the 60B, ASW was the most interesting in terms of tactical engagement and mental gymnastics. Great stuff.

OK. So I'm guessing the first sniff was with the tail. I did history/strategic studies in the mid '70s. My final paper was the build up of the Soviet Navy under Gorshkov. I remember following the transit of Kiev from Black Sea to North Sea. You're probably aware that Canadian destroyers had early towed array units in the late '50s. In port they looked like they had a small steel blimp in a gantry on the stern.

The Soviets did have some balls to the wall ship drivers. I worked for a while with a guy who had been a com tech with the Canadian Navy when the Soviets sent two or three surface units to Vancouver on a friendly visit. This guy was assigned to a Canadian admiral and was standing just behind him on the dock on the foggy morning when the Soviets were supposed to arrive. The speculation among the brass was the arrival time would be later because of the pea soup. Right on time the Soviet vessels dashed into the harbour to the cries of "Oh my God!" from those on the wharf.
He said it was impressive as hell. Dangerous, but impressive.

Best
Les

This article is from 2010. Not much has changed except their subs are again very good. The subs I mentioned above were old Yankees.

https://geohistory.today/russian_navy/

As I have written many times, Blue Water surface naval capability is hard and very expensive.

You sneaky rat bastardo!

By the way, Les, I'd like to think that it was all me if you don't mind...tail, I didn't need no stinking tail:D

There were other "methods" that gave us the ability to begin to circle the wagons: P-3's, underwater assets, etc. The SH-60B carried 25 sonobuoys total in ASW configuration but the P-3's, and we even got a stray S-3 to play, littered the Bering Sea. Cool thing about sonobuoys is that once launched, we could all tune in and share the data.

The other neat thing, which most people do not understand, is that the SH-60B was always in direct data link contact with their host ship. All SB data and information was automatically passed to, in my case, a Frigate with ASW operators manning consoles with much more computing power than I was flying.

The ship could also operate other sensors onboard my helo in real time and display the data in CIC.

It was a hoot.

Now, and I mean this, if I ever knock the men and women of the Canadian or Soviet Navy's please run me over, back up and do it again.

Canada knows how to go to sea, well. In the old days, the Soviets knew how to go to sea, poorly in term of equipment, well in terms of seamanship.