Talk:Tupolev Tu-154

safety record

You can't say it has an "undeservedly poor safety record". It either has a poor safety record, in which case it deserves it, or it doesn't, in which case there is no need to mention it. In fact, it does have a poor safety record, as I mentioned before. I'm unclear why my better wording was changed. The cause of the poor safety record is unimportant - if a larger number than average of a particular type is involved in accidents, then there could be a common cause, even if the accidents are due to "human error". There may be a design fault that tends to increase the chance of human error for example. However, none of that matters - statistically, the Tu-154 is involved in a higher number of accidents than average. That's all, and it's all that can be said about it in the article. "Undeservedly" is POV. Graham 06:53, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Most hull losses of the 154 are not the result of mechanical failure, whereas they are in planes such as the 737, which is an important difference when considering hull loss stats. Boeing 737 has a hull loss rate of at least 2.5% and doesn't operate in anywhere near as demanding conditions as do many 154s. SineBot

The Tupolev 154's chequered safety record owes more to errors than technical problems.. please refer to BBC for details. Due respect should be given to these workhorse which served, on daily basis, the most unforgiving climactic and geographical extremes; anywhere from Spitsbergen to Ulan Bator and with anything in between, particularly the Siberian airports. Temperatures to as low as -61 degrees Celsius and frosts and poor visibility beyond any extremes found either in northern Europe or Canada. There are many Russians living in those places. The Tu-154 forms that lifeline. The accident database of the Tu-154 reveals that most accidents happen apart from the extreme weather, due to the shoddy management of the civil aviation in the iron curtain; ATC asleep, runaway lights not working, pilots ignoring and overriding airplane systems, poor maintenance and for some just plain bad luck to be blasted off the skies by SAMs. Put equivalent 727 in such situations and see if it makes the difference...Fikri

You may be right, but it doesn't change the fact that it's not the 727 having these accidents, it's the 154! You'll notice my wording does not draw any conclusions from this, it simply mentions the fact. That's all that can be said, and anything else is POV. Graham 05:11, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I suggest scrapping the safety comment until we can see some hard evidence as to hull loss compared other airliners or similar design.

According to aviation safety authority John Wiley:

"the TU-154 is essentially banned in the West because it does not comply with European noise and pollution regulations, but it has a safer than average accident record" (quoted in ttp://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/07/15/iran.plane.crash/index.html). Another source says the safety record is very similar to the 727 and 737, but that it operates in harsher climates and conditions (ETN news 16/7/09). You can use accident statistics in numerous ways by highlighting different parameters, but I think it's fairly safe to conclude that overall the safety record is probably equal to or better than a 727 or 737 operating under the same conditions. Aria 613.

Wording

The article is too technical in places. What the heck is are "triple bogie main undercarriage units"? One should be able to read this without expert knowledge... Averell 15:54, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

\it is not true/ Why type anything like this? I find the wording in the "design features" strange, especially since it says "it is not true" in the end. It shouldn`t refer to a particular flight as source, but I can confirm the description of the cabin, after flying from Oslo by Moscow to Baku and back again, the planes were all tight. Shauni 19:39, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Huh?

The comparable western analogue of Tu-154 is Boeing 727. Boeing has a better fuel efficiency while Tupolev has better soil load characteristic (Tu-154: 17-19 tonnes, Boeing 727: 31-33 tonnes)

What does this mean - what is "soil load", and what do the tonnages mentioned actually refer to? Graham 00:31, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

soil load is undoubtably a less than perfect translation of "ground load."

ground load is a very important consideration in large aircraft, especially when it comes to use of less than optimum quality runway. the tu154 is designed to use runways in poor weather or poor design/construction conditions and therefore its exceptionally low ground load is notable.71.252.85.62 17:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Crashes

There needs to be some mention of crashes in this article. I'm aware of the arguments that there are lots of 154s operating and that they operate in difficult conditions, possibly with poor maintenance, but the simple fact is that Tu-154 crashes are common. We can't ignore this. 81.77.72.130 13:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The crashes are mentioned. There is a problem as they are attributed to human error, which is not the case. the concencus is that the several other factors are more likly contributors: huge number of cycles (takeoffs and landings); use on many many poor runways or poor runway conditions; and poor mainatainace. these three seem to be more of a factor than eithe rhuman erro or problems deriving inherently from design.71.252.85.62 17:28, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The article refers to 63 TU-154s "lost to accidents". The corresponding article in Russian section of Wikipedia refers to only 29 TU-154s "crashed" in terms of "being lost", and lists all of them meticulously, including those hit by missiles or exploded by terrorists.

Using such wording as "63 lost to accidents" misinforms the reader while the cited source (aviation-safety.net) contains information which is not 100% reliable, especially when it comes to air fleet in USSR. Their list of TU-154 incidents even includes the same incident twice (with RA-85795). Alexander0807 07:42, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Prominance of NATO reporting names

Placement of "NATO Reporting Names" in the first sentence of each Soviet, Russian or East European civil airliners represents a point of view problem.

I've looked at about a dozen aircraft that are over 90% civilian use and see this, and can say for a fact that in civil use western authorities do not use these desgnations, for example the US FAA and US and western ATC do not use Nato Reporting Names in either formal or informanl reference.

One does not see Russian or Chinese code names attributed to Boeing or Airbus civil airliners that are also used occassionally in the military.

Therefore the NATO designation is better placed far below in the section on miliary uses.71.252.85.62 17:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. What you suggest is part of the rampant revisionist effort to downplay 50 years of Cold War history. The NATO names were widely used and their military uses were at least as common as civilian use. Aeroflot (which was much larger then) was an instrument of the Soviet military as much as it was a civilian airline. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 18:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

rampant revisionist? Of what a pov desingnation not used in 90% of references? The nato names were not widely used but rarely used. what you mean is nato names used by nato. these are russian and east europenman civil airliners.

Are you suggesting the Soviet or Russian code names for the boeing 707 etc be in the first sentence of the 707 and all the other civil airliners? the c and kc 135 varients were not the only case, the 707 passenmger version itself was also used as US military transport.

As far as aeroflot being as much an instrument of the soviet military that is no different than US airlines civil airliners which also were used for military transport.

This is not "rampant revsionism, but removal of a POV suggestion that these aircraft are moslty military which is false. the FACT is googling the tu154 on western websites, including the FAA, a slew of civil aviations sites, official and not, hardly ever use this disignation

It is not going to be removed, but moved lower down to notes on military use.

71.252.85.62 16:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Soviet Union does not have formal reporting names for Western aircraft. If you remove "Careless" again, you will start getting vandalism warnings. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 00:14, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Orignal photo

I am restoring orignal photo which was removed a few months ago. The original photo more strongly conveys the harsh weather conditions the 154 is designed to operate under.71.252.85.62 16:43, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• This article is about the Tu-154 and not the weather conditions in Russia. It is already used once in this article. Mieciu K 22:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Hull-loss accidents

There were far more than 29 losses since its delivery. According to aviation-safety.net, there were 62 such incidents, including the latest crash near Donetsk. I've updated the article. --unpluggged 19:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Where is the proof?

When making claims about the plane's safety record, it would be better to provide statistics showing how the plane safety record compares to other similar aircrafts. Otherwise, the reader may get impression that the statements are biased and are not supported by the facts.

Airworthiness Standards

 This article claims that the TU-154 was the first Soviet aircraft manufactured to Western
airworthiness standards.  The book Tupolev Tu-154, the USSR's medium-range jet airliner by Dmitriy
Komissarov, published by Midland Publishing in 2007 makes no reference to any Western standards.  It
does say on pages 15-16 that prior to 1967 the USSR had no such standards.  The Tu-154 was the first
airplane developed to the Soviet NLGS-1 (Normy Iyotnoy Godnosti Samolyotov, Airworthiness standards
for fixed wing aircraft) standard.  Furthermore, the book OKB Tupolev, A history of the Design
Bureau and its Aircraft by Yefim Gordon and Vladimir Rigmant, translated by Alexander Boyd 
and edited by Dmitriy Komissarov (Midland Pub, 2005) makes no reference to either set of standards.
I also find it hard to believe that in the 1960's the Soviets would be designing aircraft to Western
standards.  Therefore, I think that the reference to Western standards should be removed.
DanielCar67 08:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

colision

when a tupolef tu-154 collided with a DHL boeing 757 I was amazed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.217.98 (talk) 19:26, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Tu-155 vs A380

So what is the big difference between the A380 alternate fuel flight on the 1st of february 2008 and the Tu-155? Only one engine was run on alternate fuel on the Tu-155, did all engine run on alternate fuel on the A380? RGDS Alexmcfire —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexmcfire (talk • contribs) 01:25, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

82 airlines would not use an unsave aircraft

first of all the plane who graham put it has a checkered safety record is flown by airlines such as Eest sky McAdam Airways easyjet and airbee and thay have had no problems Chip2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chip1990 (talk • contribs) 17:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement of Fault

The current document announces declaratively that Israel intentionally shot down the Malev 240 flight off of Lebanon. While a theory definitely exists that this may be the case, it seems that no conclusive investigation was undertaken. Further, similar theories suggest Syrian influence See [[1]]. The official record provides little by way of useful information at [[2]]. Strikes me that the text should be clear about what is theory (who and why) and what is fact (that it went down). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmping (talk • contribs) 22:40, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed.

Six of those incidents resulted from terrorist or military action including an intentional shootdown by Israel...

This is a false statement. I have changed the word "intentional" to "alleged" and removed "Israel" and provided appropriate references. I'm sure more references are available. I removed Israel simply because Syria, for one, was also implicated. This entry, as is now known, is now factual. Anyone wishing to revert this entry should discuss it first. The simple words "shot down" are inaccurate as the cause of the crash has never officially been determined. There is also no freight manifest so the contents of the aircraft are unknown. This required further editing. Simple cleanup of what I have done, while remaining factual, is welcomed.--Traumatic (talk) 16:40, 1 February 2010 (UTC)