The pilots of the crashed Su-30 could have been poisoned with an euthanasia agent in flight

During the flight, test pilots of the Su-30SM could inhale the euthanasia agent – nitrogen. As a result, there was a “smooth fading of life” of the pilots, and an uncontrolled fighter fell on a residential building in the suburbs of Irkutsk.

This version is being considered by the Eastern Interregional Investigation Department of the TFR on Transport (VMSUT), Kommersant writes with reference to the department. Pilots losing consciousness due to breathing problems is one of three versions, along with aircraft failure and crew error.

To study it, the investigators seized a “unified gas-discharge station with medical oxygen” in order to take fuel and gas samples for chemical research. This station is used at airfields for refueling aircraft oxygen systems and is a mobile device based on the ZIL-131 car. The purpose of the system is to provide the fighter crew with pure pure medical oxygen.

The oxygen that is pumped into the fighter’s cylinders must not contain nitrogen or other gases. Nitrogen, which is used for euthanasia, can lead to a “slow extinction of life.” It is sometimes used for poisoning for criminal purposes because it leaves no traces.

In some modern fighters, instead of oxygen tanks, on-board oxygen plants are used, which receive oxygen from air compressed in the engine compressor. Also, such installations produce nitrogen for pressurization into the empty space of the fuel tank, but there is no such system on the Su-30SM.

The problem could not be the high nitrogen content in the oxygen mixture, but other impurities that could lead to hypoxia or hyperoxia, experts say. Hypoxia occurs when the aircraft is depressurized, so the pilots would notice it, but hyperoxia could come as a complete surprise, Kommersant’s interlocutors say. Due to the supersaturation of blood with oxygen, it ceases to remove carbon dioxide from the body, which causes oxygen poisoning with convulsions, coughing and sudden cardiac arrest.

Su-30 fell on a residential building in the suburbs of Irkutsk on the evening of October 23. Communication with the pilots was lost at 17:50 local time. For 30 minutes they were unsuccessfully contacted via the emergency radio channel. At 18:19, the plane dived sharply down and fell on a two-story house.