Looking into this one
Sergey Bainetov, the Russian Air Force's deputy head of flight safety
Minister of Transport, Maxim Sokolov
Latest press conference reports
https://sputniknews.com/trend/tu_154...cue_operation/
Also - sorry, but all talk of flaps may be premature - a single 'leak' and 'assumptions' in an echo chamber vacuum?
The Russian news network Life.ru quoted a source close to the investigation as saying that the final words uttered by the Tu-154's pilot indicated a possible flap fault.
www.Life.ru referred to the final recording of the cockpit before the crash, in which the pilot can allegedly be heard yelling "the flaps, damn it!" which was followed by "commander, we're going down." This has yet to be officially confirmed. Life.ru also quoted Russian aviation expert Viktor Zabolotsky as saying that flaps-related problems typically lead to a situation where pilots finally prove to be unable to take control of a plane while in the air.
He was echoed by another Russian aviation expert, Oleg Smirnov who told the online newspaper Vzglyad that his first assumptions regarding the Tu-154 crash were also related to a flap failure. The matter is that the plane disappeared just at the point during the flight when the wing flaps should have been retracted, according to Smirnov.
https://sputniknews.com/russia/20161...e-crash-cause/