News 'Dozens dead' in Russian plane crash.

[Notebook]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24980055

 

[MattBaker]

Addition from the Huffington Post:

Firefighters extinguished a fire at the scene. According to eyewitness reports, the Boeing lost altitude quickly and its fuel tank exploded on impact.

According to local reports, there were high winds and cloudy skies over the airport in central Russia. Temperatures were above zero.

May these lives not be lost for nothing but for a better understanding on aviation disasters and how to prevent them. Until then, godspeed for their last flight!

 

[N_Molson]

Though Russian, it was a Boeing 737.

 

[Evil_Onyx]

Weather report at the time was [15:30 UTC / 19:30 LT: Wind 230 degrees at 8 m/s, gusting to 11 m/s; visibility 5000 m; light rain, light snow; Overcast at 700 feet; Temperature: 3°C, Dewpoint: 3°C; Pressure: 993 mb]

Low thick cloud, possible ground fog, Strong crosswind with gusts. The airport is at 414 feet so only 300ft between the runway and the cloud base.

The aircraft involved had two other incidents one in December 2001 and "broke its landing gear", the second less than a year ago (27 November 2012) listed as "loss of cabin pressure".

Its too early to say what the cause of this crash is, but i would not be suprised if the aircraft repairs get a good looking at.

 

[N_Molson]

So it was a 23 years-old plane. Old but this is not a rare thing. Seems it has flown a lot, as it was operated in Brazil during the forementionned incident.

 

[MattBaker]

Low thick cloud, possible ground fog, Strong crosswind with gusts. The airport is at 414 feet so only 300ft between the runway and the cloud base.

Sounds like the Lech Kaczynski crash: "Dude, you can't see a damn thing!" - "Well, I'll bring it down safely. Watch!"

---------- Post added at 10:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:59 PM ----------

And then realizing he's undershooting, trying to pull up, stalling, crashing and there you have the explosion.

 

[Artlav]

Rumours are that these 737s were scheduled to be retired in early 2013, but kept flying.
So, some sort of age/maintenance related failure is likely.

Nothing new in the local news yet.

 

[Hielor]

The airport is at 414 feet so only 300ft between the runway and the cloud base.

Cloud cover altitudes are typically given in above-ground-level terms.

 

[PeterRoss]

Some pieces of contradictory information appearing in the news. Bad weather condition. The plane was not subjected to pre-flight check "because is was a returning flight". Pilots reported about impossibility of landing the plane during the first approach, but nevertheless they tried the second one and crashed. One source tells that the plane hit the ground with its nose, another one says it was the wing.

 

[N_Molson]

Here is the operational history of that plane :

Boeing 737 - MSN 24785 - VQ-BBN
Serial number : 24785 LN:1882
Type : 737-53A
First flight date : 18/06/1990
Test registration : N35135
Plane age : 23.4 years
Seat configuration : C12 Y105
Engines : 2 x [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFM_International_CFM56"]CFMI CFM56-3C1[/ame]

Operators of the aircraft

13/07/1990 Euralair Horizons F-GGML
01/06/1992 Air France F-GGML
15/07/1995 Uganda Airlines 5X-USM
17/02/2000 Rio Sul PT-SSI Stored 08/2005 at Mexico City
01/09/2005 Blue Air YR-BAB
17/05/2008 Bulgaria Air LZ-BOY
19/12/2008 Tatarstan Air VQ-BBN

Was photographied by aviation fans :

 

[astrosammy]

http://avherald.com/h?article=46b9ecbc

A security video just uploaded on RT's youtube channel which I prefer not to post here shows a nearly dive with a horrible explosion.
Looking at the strobes the video seems to be slowed down a bit, so I don't really know how fast the plane was.

May these lives not be lost for nothing but for a better understanding on aviation disasters and how to prevent them. Until then, godspeed for their last flight!

:hesaid:

 

[Urwumpe]

The weather can be excluded as main cause: it all sounds like pretty good conditions. 700 ft cloud base is high enough decision height for even visual approaches. Below the clouds, you had 5000 meters visibility - thats not high, but good enough - if you look at the photographs right after the crash, it was a good dark night.

The temperatures around the dew point could be a challenge for a badly maintained aircraft, also the crew was pretty green, the captain was just promoted. When something goes wrong, communication and important decisions could take longer than for a more experienced crew, what is critical during landing.

The troubles that Russia has in spaceflight are not different to the problems in airflight: Many russian airlines suffer from really really bad conditions and the controls in Russia are almost not existing (and can be bribed away).


But since so many celebrities died in the crash (son of the president of the local indepedent region, local FSB director, family of TV host), it is unlikely that the investigation will really go beyond the Khrushchev judgment: The captain and flight crew will get blamed for a controlled flight into terrain, and the dead had already been punished.

And the next deadly crash will come in Russia.

EDIT: Judging the aircraft lights in the RT video, it seems like the aircraft crashed in a nearly vertical dive - you can see the landing lights and the strobe, also the vertical stabilizer lights provide a bit of illumination to see an aircraft tail shape. It is just the question: Is this the right video?

A nearly vertical dive could still be pilot error - but that is VERY unlikely.

 

[Athena]

What's with the people at the comments section here saying the flash before the crash were the engines were flashing? Isn't that the strobe lights

 

[MattBaker]

The troubles that Russia has in spaceflight are not different to the problems in airflight: Many russian airlines suffer from really really bad conditions and the controls in Russia are almost not existing (and can be bribed away).

I would agree there. To me the list of operators looks interesting due to that. IMO they all don't look like they'd be the biggest airlines (except Air France:tiphat and since '05 it only flew for Eastern Europe nations. An aircraft has to be serviced and maintained, too. Especially if it gets older.

EDIT: Judging the aircraft lights in the RT video, it seems like the aircraft crashed in a nearly vertical dive - you can see the landing lights and the strobe, also the vertical stabilizer lights provide a bit of illumination to see an aircraft tail shape. It is just the question: Is this the right video?

A nearly vertical dive could still be pilot error - but that is VERY unlikely.

That surprised me as well. No pilot - even a green one - is 'able' to make such a horrid mistake. At least I would completley agree with your observation and people in the comments on the website/YouTube do so, too.

Which confuses even more if you consider the map. On the map it would look like he's close to another landing attempt or is just going around another time. Both isn't a reason to push the rudder to its dead end.


Even the Bagram airfield crash, which was a stall in a critical phase of the flight, didn't look like that. There the plane came down nearly leveled (just with no horizontal speed at all). So I wouldn't agree on a stall during landing (which is always a possibility) either.

---------- Post added at 01:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:37 PM ----------

Isn't that the strobe lights

I thought so, too. The engine would probably look different but that's trying to analyze details from a horrible quality video.

 

[Urwumpe]

That surprised me as well. No pilot - even a green one - is 'able' to make such a horrid mistake. At least I would completley agree with your observation and people in the comments on the website/YouTube do so, too.

Well, lets assert the pilot was doing a go-around based on that poor video.

What can make a 737 turn into a nearly vertical dive in such a low altitude?

Even the pilot stalling the aircraft during the go-around by not applying TOGA throttle is not likely to produce such an attitude.

Also: The aircraft crashed likely at very high speed: The video is a bad source there, but there is a lack of big debris after the crash. Most of the aircraft was shredded into really tiny pieced - the explosion of the fuel tank vapors alone can't do that.

It all sounds like something went wrong aerodynamically - I can't imagine the 737-500 to be so agile that it could get from nose high in maximal 1500 ft to vertical dive by pushing the stick forward.

Which confuses even more if you consider the map. On the map it would look like he's close to another landing attempt or is just going around another time. Both isn't a reason to push the rudder to its dead end.

The crash site is either landing approach CFIT or an aborted landing approach with hard crash. Nothing unexpected for me.

---------- Post added at 02:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:56 PM ----------

What's with the people at the comments section here saying the flash before the crash were the engines were flashing? Isn't that the strobe lights

Thats the strobe lights - engines flashing would not be so regular and by a random chance, in the same frequency as the strobe light.

 

[MattBaker]

The crash site is either landing approach CFIT or an aborted landing approach with hard crash. Nothing unexpected for me.

I meant confusing since that position would suggest he's quite low and it's nearly impossible to get into a vertical drop then.

 

[Urwumpe]

I meant confusing since that position would suggest he's quite low and it's nearly impossible to get into a vertical drop then.

Yes, that confuses me as well - I can't tell how maneuverable the 737-500 is at that speeds. But I have strong doubts, that it could get steered into such an attitude in that low altitude and at low air speed.

What I could imagine is an unstable tail-heavy trim, that could make the aircraft oscillate out of control and then get into a steep dive. But that should be impossible (IMHO) to happen on such a flight without the horizontal stabilizer being severely damaged.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

How about the crew suffering from spatial dis-orientation a la ET 409?

Edit: It seems that RT may have yet again used the wrong video for the flight...... :facepalm:

 

[N_Molson]

It all sounds like something went wrong aerodynamically

That kind of trajectory would have been possible if the tail suddenly went away, it happened in a few circumstances (fatigue cracks).

If the pilot was suicidal or linked to terrorists and really wanted to crash the plane at high speed, best thing to do was a semi-barell roll then a positive-g dive, aircrafts are much more manoeuverable that way.

Yes, from the video that's definitively a nose-down vertical dive. Hard to say anything else.

 

[Urwumpe]

How about the crew suffering from spatial dis-orientation a la ET 409?

Edit: It seems that RT may have yet again used the wrong video for the flight...... :facepalm:

Not just RT - but many news outlets seem to use aircraft footage of all kinds, despite the crash happening at night. That is why I am a bit cautious with just the video.

One photograph of the crash site in your link even looked like the San Francisco crash earlier this year.

---------- Post added at 05:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:08 PM ----------

If the pilot was suicidal or linked to terrorists and really wanted to crash the plane at high speed, best thing to do was a semi-barell roll then a positive-g dive, aircrafts are much more manoeuverable that way.

Yes, exactly that. But even that is hard, if you did a normal landing approach at low speed, gear down, flaps extended before.

EDIT: And pretty implausible. If you want to be terrorist, you would NOT crash at the ground radar - there are better options and easier targets. And for suicide, you would be better off doing this after take-off, much less chances for the copilot to stop you.

Yes, from the video that's definitively a nose-down vertical dive. Hard to say anything else.

Too me it looks like it was also heads up (not diving inverted), but I am not sure there. What do you think?

I would say around 70° dive angle - it always looks steeper from inside and outside, if you are not looking directly from or to the side.

Spatial disorientation is a possibility, but again, hard to explain without better information. Night flying is a constant source of vertigo.