@Herod
With some insights into soviet and post-soviet aviation, I would not assume wilful falsification, simply a math error or ommission that went unnoticed by the crew. Probably the LS was done manually, while the layout and workflow is well designed (I used to instruct how to prepare those many moons ago) errors can still be made.
Still, the quoted numbers would imply a payload of 24 tons, (OEW is ~51 tons), that sounds unrealistically high given the known number of pax (83), so I would hold my breath on this one for the time being (unless of course there were also some undeclared long heavy olive-green wooden boxes on board, but if that was the case we will not hear about it...).
Last edited by andrasz; 27th Apr 2017 at 10:36.