The final position gave us a new stone to mosaic:
The plane flew for ca. 10-11 km before crash - investigators told 6km south, then U turn and 4km north. They also told that the speed was approx. 350km/h and that there was lack of climb. It is not clear what exactly they meant by this lack of climb. Anyway, ATC lady instruct the crew to call Sochi approach after reaching 300m. They never did it. Investigators (not Kremlin) also supposed that it was technical issue and/or human error.
It looks that the key information is climb rate from airport radar data. If they found that climb rate was very low, they could exclude some reason, for example bomb.
Back door:
URSS 250230Z 06004MPS 9999 BKN033 OVC083 05/01 Q1019 R06/090070 R02/090070 NOSIG
RMK R02/05004MPS MT OBSC QFE763
Decoded:
Location...........: URSS
Day of month.......: 25
Time...............: 02:30 UTC
Wind...............: true direction = 060 degrees; speed = 4 m/s
Visibility.........: 10 km or more
Cloud coverage.....: broken (5 to 7 oktas) at 3300 feet above aerodrome level
Cloud coverage.....: overcast (8 oktas) at 8300 feet above aerodrome level
Temperature........: 05 degrees Celsius
Dewpoint...........: 01 degrees Celsius
QNH (msl pressure).: 1019 hPa
Next 2 hours.......: no significant changes
Last edited by Karel_x; 26th Dec 2016 at 18:53.
Reason: change time of METAR to 02:30