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Russian Superjet 100 Crashes During Demo Flight, Killing All Aboard
First time accepted submitter Prokur writes "A brand new Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 airliner on a demonstration flight with 37 passengers (mostly future clients and journalists) and 8 Russian crew members on board went missing after it took off from an airport in Jakarta. After an extensive search, rescuers concluded, based on the widespread debris field on the side of a ridge, that the aircraft directly impacted the rocky side of Mount Salak and there was 'no chance of survival.'"
That can't be good for sales. If I was buying an airliner, I'd have to pass on this one.
I hope Sukhoi wasn't counting on repeat customers to make their sales figures this year...
"Murderer? Well, that's a harsh word. I prefer to think of myself as a Mortality Technician."
In Russia...plane crashes you
No, just wrong. They took care of that problem by making sure the potential customers were in the plane, as the summary says.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
It was apparently raining or overcast, seems likely that the pilots flew into the mountain while attempting a sightseeing flyby. That's a completely different story than if there was a mechanical malfunction. Of course, they'll lose sales either way.
Not at this size they wont. More like Embraer and Bombardier will get more customers
"Are you sure you don't want to buy our planes? Very well. If we have no further business, our aircraft is now on its final descent. Don't bother fastening your seat belts."
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
In the 90's they told us that if a customer has a good experience with your company he will generally not tell anyone, but if he has a bad experience with your company he'll tell at least 10 other people. They failed to cover the "Your product resulted in their death" case, though.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Reminds me of the braindead comments we saw here in Indiana after last year's State Fair stage collapse when it was revealed that no one had to inspect the stage rigging.
My favorite was the one that said "why does it matter if some guy inspects the rigging." Well, for one thing it's not "some guy" but someone that has education and experience with such engineering problems. Secondly it's because people could die if it is wrong. Even when given a practical demonstration people are so ideologically motivated that they can't see why it should be done. You should of seen that idiot Mitch "fuck all regulations" Daniels backtrack when this was revealed and and people wondered why common sense wasn't followed and someone with experience didn't look over the setup.
on the other hand, if they were being forced to watch an in-flight Jennifer Aniston movie, then it's just merciful...
How dare you judge her? I mean what are you? You think you're some kind of, like, angel here? No, you're just this penny-stealing... wanna-be criminal... man.
From a previous article I read, Boeing is one of the companies that had a hand in designing it.
if the pilot is dead, then it is always pilot error. He cant defend himself, or point to any incorrect training or manuals or flight characteristics. PR will always point at the dead guy in these cases, until the same thing happens multiple times, or blame can be pinned on somebody outside of the company like in the valuejet crash.
Don't worry, they'll make up for it by selling more weapons to North Korea.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
You're an idiot. The plane was certified by numerous agencies, and has been flying commercially since April of 2011.
It is certified as meeting the relevant airworthiness and safety requirements by the Interstate Aviation Committee and the European Aviation Safety Agency; The EASA certification is more or less identical in procedure and requirement to our own FAA requirements.
This has nothing to do with "insufficient safety regulations and inspection" in Russia, the plane passed all the same certifications it would need to pass here in the USA, and in fact, the certificate that was awarded by EASA may very well be valid in the US, as there is some reciprocity in these certification processes.
Initial reports suggest that it was CFIT, and they flew right into the side of the mountain; unless you've got access to the black box already, maybe you should hold off on hollow political posturing until an understanding can be reached as to what actually happened?
Nope, sorry, your explanation is the standard one and it's wrong - the FBW system didn't prevent anything, the pilot had the engines at a far too low power setting and it takes time for any jet engine to spool up from that point. The pilot should have had the engines at a high power setting (TOGA) and he should have been using aerodynamic devices to keep the speed at the level he wanted it - he didn't, he just throttled back the engines, which you should never do in that situation.
The pilot was correctly blamed for that one.
That's rubbish. The fly by wire system didn't prevent anything. The engines actually spooled up quicker than the numbers in the book said they should. The problem is basically the crew didn't add power until the tail was already dragging through the tree tops (which added a tremendous amount of drag, as well as distorting and damaging the aerodynamic tail surfaces). Any airliner of that size, fly by wire or not, would have crashed doing what that crew did - unless it was fitted with JATO rockets.
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It is likely that the primary cause of this was pilot error and what we have is controlled flight into fixed terrain. Demonstration flights are designed to wow the prospective customers and it seems likely that they where attempting to do a bit of sightseeing. After all, commercial aviation is usually boring because you are spending hours and hours going straight and level with only takeoff and landing being somewhat interesting. They where taking the local sightseeing tour to spice things up a bit, which is why they requested the lower altitude. You don't go lower without an emergency, unless you intend to land or look at something, and by all the accounts I've heard there was no emergency declared and there are few places to land around there.
The pilot may have been a great test pilot with lots of time in the aircraft he was flying, but I seriously doubt he has a lot of experience with the local terrain and weather conditions. Flying 500' from the tops of mountains can be a difficult thing on a clear day, but you add the tropical rains, possible winds driving air over the mountains and the risks go up. Bush pilots avoid these situations in much slower aircraft because it is too easy to run out of room faster than you can turn around or climb, this was a much faster less maneuverable aircraft than a C208 or Caravan. Further you have the issue of turbulence, up and down drafts that are common issues with mountain flying. These things can make maintaining altitude unexpectedly difficult when trying to maneuver. Smart pilots avoid unnecessary risks, this guy didn't because he was trying to sell airplanes. His requested altitude was ONLY 500' above the existing terrain in limited visibility, I'm pretty much going to call this pilot irresponsible for taking such risks.
It is possible a mechanical problem may have contributed to this, but unless we are talking about a MAJOR mechanical issue that made the aircraft totally un-flyable (an extremely rare situation), the primary cause of this accident is surely going to be pilot error. Even in the face of a major mechanical failure they are going to fault him for 1. flying too low , 2. Choosing to fly around dangerous terrain, 3. Choosing to fly in limited visibility where he had to maintain visual orientation to remain safe.
Chances are we have yet again another case of human error, stemming from lack of wise judgement. But that is no surprise because this is the most common killer in aviation with mechanical failure being order of magnitudes less likely.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Lev Andropov: It's stuck, yes?
Watts: Back off! You don't know the components!
Lev Andropov: [annoyed] Components. American components, Russian Components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!
Funny, I didn't realize that the European Aviation Safety Agency was a Russian regulatory agency. Or is it that Russians are so corrupt that they subverted the Europeans as well and just purchased a certification? And if that's the case, what point having regulatory agencies at all, if they're so easily subverted and worked around?
Your point would have been a real zinger, if it was the case that this Sukhoi was flying without certification or inspection. But since it received the same certifications and inspections that any Boeing, Airbus, Embraer, etc. plane must pass, it sort of makes you look like an idiot. Because it did go under "anywhere near the scrutiny a Euro or American one does," because it went through *the exact same scrutiny.*
Safety systems don't trump physics and performance limitations, friend. Nor do they replace a pilot's experience and familiarity with the controls and operating characteristics of the aircraft. If your terrain warning goes off, it doesn't do much good if you don't have time or distance to correct your course. Given that they had descended to around 6000 feet, and the mountain is about 7000 feet, it's quite possible that they couldn't pull up in time. It's also possible that (like the recent cruise ship accident off the coast of Italy) the pilot was "showing off" and got a little too close to something he shouldn't have. It's also possible that the pilot responded improperly to the warnings he was given (i.e., Air France 447 which crashed into the Atlantic), or responded too slowly, or that he was given conflicting or bad warnings by a malfunctioning instrument.
There's dozens of possible explanations for how a plane can crash - assuming that it's "hurr durr no inspections" when all the evidence available suggests that the plane underwent the same exact safety and regulatory review (by the EASA) that any other aircraft in service did is simply obnoxious political posturing in a (vain) effort to make yourself look clever.
Let's perform a little experiment. Go get a grant for a couple hundred grand. Don't worry, I'll wait.
Next, go out and buy the most modern automobile you can, with as many safety features as you can find. Only restrictions are "must be street-legal" and "must be available to the general public". No military tanks, no experimental Google self-driving cars, nothing like that.
Now get in, find yourself a nice bit of highway. Get up to 60mph/100kmph or so, standard "cruising speed".
Now point yourself straight at the nearest immovable object. A nice, big tree, or perhaps a brick wall.
If your car didn't magically seize control of the vehicle, apply the brakes and take evasive action as necessary, I suppose it must not have had "sufficient safety mechanisms". But, last I checked, "the pilots tried to turn the airplane into a dirtplane" is not something a safety feature can always stop. A good warning system can alert the pilots that they're about to hit a mountain, but even then, the pilots may not have had time to respond, or may not have heeded the warning.
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/newsletter/superjet-disappears-south-of-jakarta-notes-from-an-aviation-consultant/517078
Notes from an aviation consultant on the area in question and why it seemed like poor planning on the Russian crew's part.
There is no sig...
http://www.cracked.com/article_19142_5-soviet-space-programs-that-prove-russia-was-insane.html
AA Flight 587 - the one where the vertical tail fin failed well in excess of its certificated ultimate load (150% maximum load, and maximum load should never be reached in an aircrafts life anyway)? I always choose to fly on aircraft that match or exceed safety requirements.
AF Flight 447 - the one where three crew members couldn't get laid in a womens prison while holding a handful of pardons? You can believe all the hatchet jobs you want, but the Airbus FBW system was not at issue in this one, and its amusing that all of the anti-Airbus stories citing the sidestick as a central issue in this point totally ignore the almost identical crashes that involved Boeing 727 and 767s (crews managed to fully stall the aircraft while completely overlooking the issue at hand), and those have standard central yokes as control.
Do you want me to cite a long list of Boeing design faults and issues? The 737 rudder hard over events that Boeing denied for a decade, before the NTSB eventually found a major issue with the tail hydraulics? The 747 cargo door designs which Boeing knew to be a design fault, but didn't do anything until people died? The 737s with corrosion issues?
If you are going to troll, do it with some actually decent facts.