Apologize for leaving you all without new developments on this story.
Having received that reply from aeroflot (snow was blown off, no violations, etc) in the beginning of April, I was looking to receive another statement, as I sent them a brief outline of regulatory provisions which were apparently violated. Since there was no reply and it seemed that the story was about to get lost amongst others, I launched a dedicated website,
link (it's all in russian) on the 1'st of May. Narrative is about 5000 words: facts of the case (differentiation between 'wet' and 'dry' snow, speculation about possible presence of ice, etc), violations (quotations from AFL's SOP, FCOM, Russian Air Law), outline of effect of wing contamination on aerodynamics (basic theory, quotations from Airbus, ICAO, NTSB, FAA, statistics on a number of fatal accidents caused by contamination on takeoff).
This website has caused quite a tornado in russian internet, and is now widely quoted on different websites (unfortunately not much media interest though). Finally russian aviation community woke up to the fact. Generally public (aviation-affiliated) condemns actions of aeroflot personnel and of their top managers who made the statement. Almost all airlines in russia and in CIS are now aware of this case. Aeroflot guys visit the website at least 5 times a day from their offices (IP-tracking). According to my sources, there is a sence of moderate panic among managers of aeroflot, and particulary among two individuals who made the statement (Mr. Chalik and Coldunov). This case is also widely discussed among aeroflot pilots.
I sent letters to EASA, SkyTeam, Airbus, IATA and Bermuda CAA. IATA indeed got interested and contacted russian CAA with fury (apparently) about the incident and aeroflot's reply. There was also a SAE conference on Aircraft De-Icing in Prague in the beginning of May, two of the people I know visited it and they reported loads of tea-room discussions condemning aeroflot's actions as well. Also, as you probably know, most russian airliners are registered in off-shore states, such as Bermuda. I sent them a quick letter and got the following reply (7'th of May):
Bermuda initiated talks and does take it seriously, how about russian CAA? Keep on reading...
Here starts the interesting part
A few days ago I wrote a public petition, signed by 80+ people, addressed to aeroflot and demanding apologies for gross misconduct of relevant regulations concerning removal of contaminants prior to takeoff.
Yesterday (on 14'th of May) I made a call to russian CAA (just out of curiosity), to the head of safety inspections department. To my total amazement his exact words (amongst other bluff) were: there were no violations of FCOM/SOP/Russian Air Law (1), snow was dry (2), there was no danger to people on board (3). I tried my best to almost quote excerpts from FCOM and SOP, but he delicately attempted to avoid my direct questions. Since I was not recording this call, I decided not to interrogate him further. So there is no case to answer, no one was punished, incident almost got lost quietly [almost, but not anymore
].
At the moment i'm preparing another petition, to russian CAA. By russian law, as a state department, they must respond to any inbound queries. So that will be an interesting reply to read. I very much doubt they will dare to confirm that there was no direct violation of FCOM/SOP or that the snow was dry indeed.
PS. For those of you who don't know, as per russian air law, it is not permitted to takeoff with wet snow (amongst other contaminats), unless otherwise stated in FCOM. Aeroflot A320 FCOM and SOP is a standard Airbus-recommended text, so it prohibits to takeoff with any contamination on the upper surface of the wing.
Anyway, their argument will be very weak, if they produce it and don't change their mind. Snow shown on the video demonstrates qualities of a wet snow, so that's a violation of russian air law (1), FCOM cleary prohibits to takeoff with any contamination - another violation (2).
Once we get a reply from CAA, if they still argue that there were no violations, we'd probably forward the whole case to transport judiciary for their own independent inquiry.
BTW, Russian CAA is very well known to 'cooperate' with aeroflot. For instance recently they lost a case in court to other russian carrier for not allowing them to compete with aeroflot on certain routes, where aeroflot operated solely alone and held a monopolistic share.
PS. I also received accounts from pilots of aeroflot who reported captain of that flight to be totally arrogant, impulsive and cowboy-like. On one occasion, he called a group of queuing junior second officers in front of medical room 'shut up puppys and let me go' and skipped the queue. On the way out when they questioned him, reply was 'you'r too junior, or wanna speak?'. I'm also in contact with other AFL pilot who reporting him being arrogant on a flight deck [will post more details once I got them].
PS2. Please don't quote FAR requirements in this topic about 'adhering', it's irrelevant. Under russian air law, the key word is 'wet snow' (presence of).
PS3. Here is the video of another aeroflot takeoff, difference being - it is a dry snow - kind of thing which is allowed as per russian air law, but not as per FCOM -
PS4.
To those guys who fly to russia - you are welcome to takeoff with snow -- as per russian CAA