Tu 134 crashed in Russia

[Kulverstukas]

Domodedovo - Petrozavodsk. 5 severely injured in hospital, other (more than 40) reported dead. Plane landed at the road 2 km short of Petrozavodsk airport. It breaked apart and catched fire.

[captplaystation]

Sad, really, truly sad. I think Russian aviation is emerging from the past quite quickly, but never quickly enough.

No reflection, or accusation , on the crew, and I have no doubt that, properly maintained, Tupolevs were well up to the task, but, time moves on, selectively. Some things stand still, and for this reason, some parts of life would be better left well in the past, but the past is still active, and for this we have now a better idea of the true accident rate in the former CIS, & I doubt it was pretty.

To balance any negativity implied in my post, I offer my appreciation of the safety achieved by Aeroflot et al with Boeing & Airbus :D

[Teddy Robinson]

Well put CPS ...

[dvv]

captplaystation, according to the METARs, the weather during the arrival of the flight was deteriorating from OVC005 to OVC003 to fog with zero visibility shortly afterwards. The airport is only equipped with 2NDB landing systems with MDH of 162 meters at best. Why the age of the aircraft is an issue here?

(typing this while watching Ice Pilots NWT (http://www.icepilots.com))

[vovachan]

The official version of events says during final approach in poor weather conditions the plane struck the ground 700 m from the threshold and broke apart.

media reports say they landed on a road.

[Joshilini]

Forty people at least dead according to various news outlets. Also, ITAR-TASS.com (reliable source?) claims that the plane had a technical problem (vague?) on approach.

Anyway...

captplaystation, according to the METARs, the weather during the arrival of the flight was deteriorating from OVC005 to OVC003 to fog with zero visibility shortly afterwards. The airport is only equipped with 2NDB landing systems with MDH of 162 meters at best. Why the age of the aircraft is an issue here?Being as blunt as possible, poor training of Russian pilots vs poor aircraft manufacturing. Wxr can never down an aircraft -- it's the crew's decision to fly inside/within the vicinity of the poor wxr which increases the workload and increases the probability of a disaster. Try and defend your views all you want but you know deep down that I put forth a valid argument.

[dvv]

Joshilini, and my views are what exactly? Let me give you a hint: OVC005 is 150 meters above the field, and they had no business being below 162 meters. "Aeroflot et al" have managed to bring down a couple-three Airbuses (Mezhdurechensk, Irkutsk, Sochi) and at least one Boeing (Perm; I don't count the gear-up landing at Kaliningrad or alleged tailstrike of a brand new B738). And at the same time I gave a link to a reality show about an airline flying DC-3 on a regular pax route. Are you catching my drift? Exactly. It's not about how old the aircraft are, it's about pilots sticking to the basics of aviating.

[Joshilini]

DVV, I think you have misread my post.

Let me clarify for you that I am not blaming the manufacturer of the aircraft as much as most Western people do, but I am blaming the pilot training standards of most (if not all) non-Western airlines.

[Kulverstukas]

Russian sources claimed that landing lights at PES were switched off just before arrival of the plane.

Moreover, some officials (incl. director of PES) claimed that that was pilots navigation error and that after missed by 200 m and begining revert maneuver plane cut electric lines.

http://img.lenta.ru/news/2011/06/21/lep/picture.jpg

[roaldp]

According to Pravda.ru the aircraft was 31 years old. The landing equipment at the airport was not working properly. Here is a computer translation, slightly corrected:

Tu-134 crashed in Karelia. Killed 44 people out of 52
21.06.2011 | Source: Pravda.Ru

Passenger aircraft Tu-134 of airline "Ruseyr" crashed a mile from the capital of Karelia. On board the ship were 52 people, 44 of them died, others are currently in intensive care. The airliner took off from Moscow at 22:30 on Monday, made a hard landing on the highway about a kilometer from Petrozaavodska writes "Gazeta.ru". The plane disintegrated fuselage, and it caught fire. At 00:45 the fire was extinguished.

NewsInfo adds that the plane was landing on the road nearly crashed into a residential building. In the mournful list of known dead was listed football referee Vladimir Pettai, who judged the match the Russian Premier League. Also near Petrozavodsk killed a Swedish citizen Vettrut Jacob, who was a lifeguard and flew to a conference of the Barents region, adds BaltInfo. Member of the crew managed to survive only one stewardess. For the life of Julia Skvortsova struggling doctors. All victims, including one child, are in hospitals. Status of the seven injured is estimated to be extremely grave, all of them are in intensive care with multiple injuries and burns.

During the night a plane flew into Karelia Emergency IL-7, carrying three mobile medical unit designed for transportation of the victims. Also, this flight will arrive in Petrozavodsk 15 rescue squad "Centrospas", and five psychologists center for emergency psychological assistance to MOE, adds dp.ru. The medical team also sent a helicopter from St. Petersburg. Also in the next few hours from Moscow to fly a charter with the relatives of those who were on board Flight 9605. Close already started to arrive in Domodedovo airport. With each of them hold a conversation, psychologists, transmits the first channel.

"Despite the fact that the machine was 31 years old, she was in good condition", - underlined by the company. In "Ruseyr" also assured that before flying the aircraft was completely properly, adds, "Russian news service." Now experts investigate the cause of the crash. It is already known that during the crash of Tu-134 near Petrozavodsk at the airport were not working means of landing. The extent to which disconnection of ground effect on the circumstances of the accident was not specified. However, according to the MOE, crash-landing airliner occurred in dense fog, said "The Eye of the Planet."

According to "Vesti.ru" on the runway at the airport near Petrozavodsk Besovets not working lights of high intensity. "Lights of high intensity on the runway, which should be included in conditions of poor visibility, did not work," - deputy chairman of the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), Alexei Morozov, without specifying the reasons. "This is a commission to be seen" - he stressed.

Professionals have found the black boxes. To set up a special investigation team of the Ministry of Transport, which included the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency and deputy head of the Ministry of Transport. It also created a committee of the Interstate aviakomiteta. By the scene of the accident sent the experts of the Investigative Committee of Russia. A criminal case under article "violation of safety rules for air operations," which provides that up to seven years in prison.

[5 APUs captain]

Descending below minimum during Non-precesion approach......
Classic crash.... again...... :-(((

[flyboy2]

44 killed in plane crash 2011-06-21 07:35
St Petersburg - A passenger jet crashed in heavy fog and burst into flames late on Monday on a highway in north-western Russia, just short of a runway whose fog lights had failed, killing 44 people, officials said. Eight people survived the crash.

The Tu-134 plane, belonging to the RusAir airline, was en route from Moscow to the city of Petrozavodsk, said an Emergencies Ministry spokesperson, Oksana Semyonova.

Her ministry said in a website statement that 44 people were killed. Eight survivors, including a 10-year-old boy and a female flight attendant, were hospitalised in critical condition in Petrozavodsk.

Semyonova said the plane went down on its final approach to the airport in Petrozavodsk, making a crash landing 1km to 2km short of the runway, breaking apart and then bursting into flames.

It was unclear if the plane had attempted to land on the road, or just happened to fall there, she said. Petrozavodsk is in Karelia province, near the Finnish border, about 640km northwest of Moscow.

Explanation

Authorities had no immediate explanation for the accident, but the Interfax news agency quoted the airport director Alexei Kuzmitsky as saying there were "unfavourable weather conditions".

Compounding the pilot's troubles was the failure of the runway's high-intensity illumination, which is supposed to be deployed at times of low visibility, Alexei Morozov, deputy head of the Interstate Aviation Committee, told the Itar-Tass news agency.

A RusAir representative who declined to give his name said that the plane was in good working order and that the weather conditions, although tricky, "weren't critical".

The Tupolev 134, along with its larger sibling the Tu-154, has been the workhorse of Soviet and Russian civil aviation since the 1960s. The model that crashed was built in 1980, had a 68-person capacity and a range of about 2 000km.

Photographs on the ministry website showed fragments of metal strewn across a road as a thick fog hung over woodland in the background. A landing gear jutting out from the ground was the only recognisable plane part.

The state news network Rossia-24 broadcast footage of woman showing video she shot on her phone of the plane burning on the highway. A nearby road sign stood undamaged, indicating the way to the airport.

The plane was carrying 52 people, including nine crew, Semyonova said. Russian news agencies said Russian Premier League soccer referee Vladimir Pettay and a Swedish citizen were among the victims.

Safety records

The Karelia branch of the Emergencies Ministry said radio contact with the pilot was lost at 23:40 local time (19:40 GMT). The black box flight data recorders have been recovered, the news agencies said.

The accident occurred on the eve of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's planned appearance on Tuesday at the Paris Air Show to support dozens of Russian firms seeking sales contracts.

Russia and the other former Soviet republics have some of the world's worst air traffic safety records, according to the International Air Transport Association. Experts blame weak government controls, poor pilot training and a cost-cutting mentality for the poor safety record, leading to emergency landings being reported with alarming regularity.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski was among 96 people killed when his Tu-154 crashed in heavy fog while trying to land near the western city of Smolensk in April 2010.

In 2006, three crashes - two in Russia and one in Ukraine - killed more than 400 people.
- AP Source:
44 killed in plane crash: News24: World: News (http://www.news24.com/World/News/44-killed-in-plane-crash-20110621)

[WHBM]

Note that although the accident appears to have happened at about midnight local, this is the time of "white nights" this far north in Petrozavodsk, and in fact the accident has happened on midsummers night, so in semi-daylight.

[snowfalcon2]

Metar info :

ULPB 202100Z 06002MPS 0700 FG VV003 14/14 Q0992 NOSIG RMK QBB100 QFE740/0987 SC0.6
ULPB 202000Z 13001MPS 2100 BR RA OVC005 14/14 Q0993 TEMPO 1500 RMK QBB160 QFE741/0988 SC0 6
ULPB 201949Z 10002MPS 2100 RA BR OVC004 15 Q0993 TEMPO 1500 RMK QBB120 QFE741/0988 SC0, 6 =
ULPB 201900Z 15001MPS 3000 BR OVC005 15/14 Q0994 NOSIG RMK QBB170 QFE741/0989 SC0.6 =

Field elevation is 46 metres / 151 feet. Accident occurred at around 1940Z.

AvHerald (http://avherald.com/h?article=43e7c1b7&opt=0)

[berkshire boy]

From the BBC is a report quoting the airports director as saying that the aircraft hit a power line causing a power cut which extinguished the high intensity landing lights

"There was no immediate explanation for the crash, but Interfax quoted the airport's director as saying there had been "unfavourable weather conditions", with the aircraft making its final descent in thick fog and heavy rain.
The aircraft hit a power line, causing a power cut which extinguished the high-intensity landing lights on the runway, deployed at times of low visibility, moments before the crash, Alexey Kuzmitsky said."

[captjns]

Curious to know if there were road lights that would be bright enough to lure the crew to think they were heading for what they thought was a runway?

[Double Back]

Was puzzled with the QBB in the METAR, but:
http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/160465-remark-metar-needs-decsifering.html

Cloudbase!


I must defend Russian aviation on the training part. I as an auditor for a large western company checking codeshare operators, have witnessed young pilots (state funded ab initio trained guys) see fly in a Ukrainian airline.
Absolutely top class. First years they fly on harsh Siberian routes, one young guy saw more bad weather as in my own then 20 years flying experience on biggies tot luxury climates.

Maybe the last 10 years training might have eroded, but by that time it outdid any western ab initio training system by a long shot when comparing theoretical levels and flight training experience which included jets.

Just by "concluding" that training there is deficient I would dub that as "western arrogance".
As if our western bare minimum (below minimum?) ab initio money driven training, is something to be proud of.

As with the Polish President accident I would say there was much pressure on the crew to press on in bad weather. Happens all over the world, but in countries like Russia the pressure might be just a tad higher. It is the whole (social)system, not this poor crew alone.

Anyhow, when still flying I would start an ADF approach briefing in bad weather with a 747 with saying: gentlemen, we are in for an emergency landing. Lucky for me I hat to deal with these situations only a few times in my WHOLE career. NOT on a daily basis...

Non precision approaches in bad WX are just risky like hell and modern pilots don't have the experience anymore like their forefathers that had nothing else better to find the runway.
Especially when it comes to deciding when to break off.
Maybe Russian pilots have even the most experience with them!

[JTONeil]

I appreciate all the usual caveats apply about not judging before the findings are made public, but, as others have noted, this does seem like another example of crews attempting to land in conditions that neither the airport nor the aircraft is properly equipped. It's difficult to escape the conclusion that poor decision making was the errant factor, and it's not the first time.

Of course, we have to consider that commercial pressures or threats had a bearing on that decision making process, and there's perhaps a cultural influence involved too. But, I have a further concern.

If airline bosses in the UK continue to erode pilots' professional status in an attempt to reduce costs, then sooner or later these types of accidents could become commonplace in Western Europe too. Think of Manx2.

[roaldp]

Pravda.ru has now released 11 photos from the crash site:
[url=http://www.pravda.ru/photo/album/17428/9/url]

[Kulverstukas]

Air crash in north-west Russia claims 44 lives (http://rt.com/news/impact-landing-petrozavodsk-tu-134/)
Published: 21 June, 2011, 02:04
Edited: 21 June, 2011, 12:39

A Tu-134 passenger plane crashes on a car highway near the area Karelian village of Besovets (RIA Novosti / Press Service of Russian Emergencies Ministry)
7UDcxbhAbLQ

Forty-four people have died in an air crash in north-west Russia. Another eight have been taken to hospital with serious injuries.
A Tupolev Tu-134 passenger plane of the RusAir aviation company has crashed near Petrozavodsk, capital of the Republic of Karelia. The incident happened at around midnight on Monday. The aircraft came down on a highway some 2km from its destination airport.
The initial rescue effort was launched by the witnesses, who happened to be near the crash site.

“I carried three people out of the wreckage. One was either a girl or a woman, I could not tell but she was lighter than the man – it was hard to see, it was dark. Then there was a man, he also wasn’t heavy, he was lighter than me. Myself and another person, Father Andrew, also carried out a big man called Sergey. There was a third person helping us…” a witness said.
“Then we carried out two more people from the wreckage in the middle of the road. Another man reached out his hands towards me but I couldn’t make it to him – everything started exploding – I could not get any closer – everything was engulfed by fire. I’m sorry…” he added.

Eight people, including two children, have been saved from the burning debris. All have been taken to hospital in a state of shock with burns and multiple injuries.

“We have received six patients with burns and physical trauma. Men, women and a 16-year-old girl. Four of them are in a critical condition. We're doing what we can. It's too early to make any prognosis,” Elissan Shandalovich, chief doctor at the hospital said.

The two children who survived the crash are Anton Terekhin and Anastasia Terekhina, brother and sister, according to an Emergencies Ministry list. Their mother, Oksana Terekhina, also survived. The other survivors on the list are Anna Nazarova, Sergey Belgeisov, Vladimir Stepanov, Aleksandra Kargopolova and Yulia Skvortsova. The latter is a flight attendant and the only crew member who was not killed in the incident.

Four of the eight injured will be transferred to Moscow in a special aircraft-mounted medical capsule. Nine-year-old Anton and Moscow resident Belgeisov are in such a bad condition that they cannot be safely moved. Kargopolova, who has moderate injuries, will be treated in Petrozavodsk, since it is much closer to her home city Kondopoga than Moscow is. The transportation of Nazarova, who lives in the Karelian city of Segezh but needs intensive therapy, is still under consideration.
The other 44 people out of the 52 on board have been killed. One of those who died was Swedish rescue worker Jacob Vetterut, another was Alerds Hans Gunter from the Netherlands, according to the Emergencies Ministry. Two victims, Vagram Simovyan and Kristina Onishchenko, were Ukrainian. The Simanovs, a family of four who had dual Russian-American citizenship, were also killed. The rest of the passengers were Russian citizens.
Karelia’s administration is preparing to receive and house some 100 relatives of the passengers of the flight, who are to arrive in the region. A team of psychologists will try to help them deal with their loss.
The republic’s head, Andrey Nelidov, announced that the families of the victims will receive aid amounting to about US$35,000. Survivors will receive half of that sum.

The remains of many of the victims are in a bad state. A DNA test will be needed to identify 33 of the bodies, the local administration says.

There could have been more victims in the incident because the Tupolev crash landed close to a number of houses next to the highway. Luckily, the only object on the ground it reportedly damaged was a parked car.

Landing lights outage linked to crash
The Emergencies Ministry says that the cause of the crash could be anything from pilot error to a mechanical fault, or possibly heavy fog. A criminal case and investigation have been opened.
“At the moment we are inspecting the site of the crash. Fragments of the plane are being found in a 300-meter-wide area. We’ve found and retrieved flight recorders. We’ve taken records of communication between the crew and the ground services from the airport. We’ve also retrieved documents and fuel samples from Domodedovo Airport in Moscow,” a spokesman for Russia’s Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin said.

The vice-chairman of the Interstate Aviation Committee and the head of the Aviation Accident Investigation Commission, Aleksey Morozov, has made a statement admitting that the landing lights at Petrozavodsk airport were off when the Tupolev approached to land, and that this together with adverse weather conditions could have caused the tragedy.
The lights outage may have been caused by the airliner itself, Nikolay Fedotov, chair of the local committee for civilian safety told the media. He said the Tupolev went 150 to 200 meters off course as it approached the runway and hit the high-voltage power line. The collision cut the power supply, and it took several seconds for the backup supply to switch on. Meanwhile, the aircraft hit several treetops with its wing and crashed, the official said.

The Tupolev Tu-134 is a twin-engine airliner designed in the early 1960s in the USSR. The model has been in operation in more than 40 countries, but the largest fleet of Tu-134s is still in Russia. The aircraft, which crashed on Monday night, was commissioned in 1980.

In 2007, the Russian transport minister, Igor Levitin, called the Tu-134 an old and outdated airliner that needed to be replaced by the Sukhoi Superjet 100 or foreign equivalents within five years. There are 28 recorded crashes – including this latest one – for this model.
President Dmitry Medvedev has expressed his condolences to the victims’ relatives and ordered Levitin to investigate the causes of the crash at the scene. According to the president’s spokeswoman Natalia Timakova, the transport minister has already arrived at the site


http://image.newsru.com/pict/id/large/1384813_20110621104147.gif http://image.newsru.com/pict/id/large/1384817_20110621104818.gif
http://image.newsru.com/pict/id/large/1384816_20110621104817.gif http://image.newsru.com/pict/id/large/1384850_20110621114119.gif

[Xeque]

Looking at Google Earth and a Reuters photo of the crash scene (the one with the Airport direction road sign) it would seem possible that they'd lined up with the airport access road which runs roughly parallel to runway 02 but about 400 metres right of it. The airport road is a residential area (houses on the right side of the road) so it will probably have good street lighting. Might explain why they had descended below minimums thinking they had the runway in sight.

[snowfalcon2]

Rough translation from the Lenta.ru website:

According to the chairman of the Committee on the livelihoods and safety of the population of Karelia Nikolai Fedotov, the airplane during landing in difficult weather conditions deviated to the right of the runway at 150-200 meters.

The crew tried to correct the aircraft at an altitude of about 110 meters after the air traffic controller told the crew to perform a go-around, but during the maneuver it hit power lines along the road, which caused the runway lights to go out for some five seconds.

When emergency lighting came on, the plane had already touched the tops of the forest and crashed on a highway. Link (http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ru&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://lenta.ru/news/2011/06/21/lep/&usg=ALkJrhik2zUmrG-ZMQl4Ixfbmc7hBe34Yg)

Also, it appears onboard were at least three high-ranking directors of a Russian nuclear power company, on their way to a conference in Petrozavodsk.
Link (http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Flenta.ru%2Fnews%2F2011%2F06%2F21%2Fatom%2F)

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Down to a few hundred feet on an NDB in atrocious weather sounds highly dangerous.

As for lining up on the nearby road.... saw it happen at Heathrow a few times with the A4 versus 27R.. and that's with Cat III ILS and a full scale lighting system.

[WHBM]

Having been to Petrozavodsk I can say that there is very little good quality road lighting outside the city centre, as can be seen in some of the photographs here the timber roadside poles appear to only be a 3-phase power transmission line, which may be the airport supply. Given that it was not dark, but foggy at the time, I too initially wondered whether they had mistaken a road alignment for the parallel runway, but can't see a candidate for this.


Google Maps (http://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=61.88488,34.145336&spn=0.037211,0.21904&t=k&z=13)

[Kulverstukas]

Power lines seems is quite undamaged on the Reuter's photos.

[AvMed.IN]

The airliner took off from Moscow at 22:30 on Monday, made a hard landing on the highway about a kilometer from Petrozaavodska writes "Gazeta.ru".
ooking at Google Earth and a Reuters photo of the crash scene (the one with the Airport direction road sign) it would seem possible that they'd lined up with the airport access road which runs roughly parallel to runway 02 but about 400 metres right of it. The airport road is a residential area (houses on the right side of the road) so it will probably have good street lighting. Might explain why they had descended below minimums thinking they had the runway in sight.

Considering the deteriorating weather, a "lit" road may have been erroneously mistaken for runway - could it not be a classical Orientation (http://www.avmed.in/2011/03/orientation-in-aviation/) error accident: due to Type I Spatial Disorientation (http://www.avmed.in/2011/04/spatial-disorientation-an-introduction/)?
PS: Considering the map, posted by Kulverstukas, I have taken the liberty to restate my point about SD? Thank you for the map, Kulverstukas.

[Kulverstukas]

http://forum.smolensk.ws/download/file.php?id=20354&sid=f1a2b6ccf28e3d9e7a883ece0ad88d17

Kulverstukas might help.

There was a map, just saw it 5 min ago, and it is gone :o(

Did you mean this one?

a "lit" road parallel to the runway

There is NO lit road parallel to the runway :rolleyes: look at the map (link in the WHBM post).

http://russianplanes.net/images/to47000/046777.jpg

Tupolev TU-134AK RA-65691 "RusAir" (http://russianplanes.net/REGINFO/2593)

[Kulverstukas]

UPD:

This was not sheduled flight, regular carrier on this line is RusLine (http://www.rusline.aero/) but they use Bombardier CRJ-200 which can take only 50 paxes vs 68 of Tu134. RusAir (http://www.rusair.com/) is charter and business carrier.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

The road in question looks nothing like the runway. Colour, proportions, surroundings, markings; all different.

[DaveReidUK]

Looks like the accident investigation won't be necessary:

'"I do not want to prejudge the investigation and all that but preliminary information suggests an obvious pilot error in poor weather conditions," said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov'

Words fail me.

[5 APUs captain]

...an obvious pilot error...
===================================
It is not an error, it is just discipline question!
Every one ex-soviet (and not only) pilot knows - if he descends below minimum during NDB approach trying to establish visual contact - he will get the ground by the Inner marker (inner NDB).... It had happen many-many times in the USSR (and not only) and still happens...

[dvv]

Kulverstukas, the LOM (ДПРМ) is not where your map shows it is. It's, in fact, further out:

http://busybee.dvv.org:8000/flying/ulpb.png

[Kulverstukas]

It's not my map. :rolleyes: It's from famous "smolensk forum" :cool: zillion-posts thread about poor Kachinsky flight.

But I can show you this: approach map from south

http://static01.rupor.sampo.ru/5107/ulpb_2ndb_02.jpg

[snowfalcon2]

The Google Earth picture clearly shows a major electric power transmission line going in the east-to-west direction about 4.4 km (2.5 NM) south of Rwy 02. This might have been where the airplane hit - any media reports on that?

Speculation:
Interestingly, the approach chart indicates that the tower heights (pylons) are 34 metres where it crosses the chart's approach track, but rise to 60 to 74 metres further to the side of the approach track. Ahead of the power line (on the assumed actual approach track, reported to have been to the right of the correct track) there is an open field and right behind the power line is a forest. So in the murk the crew may have allowed the plane to descend too low over the field, and then not seen the pylons against the dark forest background. The higher pylons would probably rise to about double the forest height.

If they had any visual ground contact at all, that is. Not many houses or light sources there either to help the crew - only what seems to be some gardening allotments, which typically have minimal lighting and probably not even that on this rainy evening.

Anyway, according to the chart the plane should have been at a height of some 220 metres when passing that power line...
FDR will hopefully clarify.

[Alice025]

And 2 people of evidence - a girl and a man, sitting in their car 200 m away from the crash site at the moment of crash - according to Komsomol Truh newspaper (popular yellow press but still) - stubbornly say they saw an orange thing like a ball in air behind them - the girl saw, told him, they turned their heads around, saw a fire in air! then bang and the plane crashed by their side.

She says she called the police at once - said "there is an airplane crashed by us, now!" and the police told them "We don't possess of such information" - and hanged up!
!!!

So they ran out and ran to the crash site, where there were bodies thrown around in plane pieces and burning alive. And dashed for a while there, between the pieces. They were joined by a man, who drove in his car from the village nearby, and he came with his 12-year old son, and a local priest also ran up there. The man with his son took command of the improvised gathering of locals, said what do you stare, look for live people - and that man and the priest actually saved 4! out of 8 who survived. And the girl and her man helped to pull he stewardess out.

Ministry of Extraordinary situation now says they will award all the 9 locals who have pulled out of the debris still 8 people alive.

Locals, interviewed by this newspaper, say there were 4 exlplosions when the plane was already burning on the ground, and they were scared to go inside the main piece of the aircraft, only pulled away those who were thrown out of the plane together with separate plane pieces, like, stuck in them, and burning alive.

The man with his son who pulled out 4 was actually treated by doctors himself after, as he's got a nervous break-down, remembers many more people to who he would come, something will blow up again - and there is no one to save anymore, and this haunts him, that there were many more who cold have been saved only there was nobody by to help him decisively.

Thank you, Kulverstukas, that is the map that I saw.

[mikeepbc]

Alice,
"And 2 people of evidence (...) stubbornly say they saw an orange thing like a ball in air behind them"
Bear in mind that the aircraft struck a powerline and trees before it hit the ground, it's also quite possible the engines ingested debris from trees, which could cause compressor surges, often evidenced by flames behind engine exhausts.

[racedo]

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security (http://www.debka.com/article/21053/)

Three Russian designers of Iran's nuclear plant die in plane crash
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 23, 2011, 12:00 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Iran nuclear (http://www.debka.com/search/tag/Iran%20nuclear/) http://www.debka.com/static/images/tag_arrow.gif Russia (http://www.debka.com/search/tag/Russia/) http://www.debka.com/static/images/tag_arrow.gif Bushehr (http://www.debka.com/search/tag/Bushehr/) http://www.debka.com/static/images/tag_arrow.gif Stuxnet (http://www.debka.com/search/tag/Stuxnet/) http://www.debka.com/static/images/tag_arrow.gif
http://www.debka.com/dynmedia/photos/2011/06/23/big/GidroPress_21.6.11.jpg
Three Russian scients who built Bushehr

The three Russian nuclear scientists who planned, designed, built and put into operation Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr this year, died Tuesday night, June 20, when a Rusaero flight from Moscow to Petrozavodsk in northwest Russia crashed.
debkafile's sources reveal that they were among the 44 passengers who were killed.

[Mr.Bloggs]

The veteran 134-A desecnded below MDA, substantially. Not allowed. in poor weather, a crash is the usual outcome. No conspiracy theory required.

[The Ancient Geek]

Oh dear, here we go.
Another stupid conspiracy theory.
Black helicopters, Grassy Knoll, <YAWN>

[Alice025]

May be the pair saw this, when the plane was in air. Knock knock knock on wood the stewardess will survive, she might know.

It's only, a sitting plan was published, showing where people were during landing, who survived, and the place of her is marked naturally in the beg. of the salon, not with the pilots. So she wouldn't know anyway, one would think, what was happening during the last minute.
(survivors sat everywhere in the beg as well as towards the end of the plane - but none in the very tail. no "safe" zone to be noticed)

The order of appearance of saving crew and ambulance is pathetic. First were helping people out various locals, (and one was woken up by the bang and sped in his car to the place), then - there appeared an ambulance from the town, and the last one - own airport's!!

And the guy who jumped in his car and rode to the crash side and pulled out four people from the burning debris - he phoned "his village neighbour, airport director" and told him of the crash - and then that airport director from home called the ambulances. Interesting the airport director didn't wake up from the bang in his home, and did not sped there himself.

[Alice025]

With the nuclear men - I think nah. Who would bother. It is not a strange co-incidence, as if there are many of them left in the country who can build a nuclear power station :o)) All old Soviet anyway, not much choice :o) There was some equipment bought for Petrozavodsk, which they flew to check, what is bought. Ordinary.

One would say don't fly 31 year old TU, that spent 1.5 years standing still before the flight, and is not on his regular flight, on tops, but is fished out from nowhere last minute replacing the line standard one (Bombardier), in fog, about which the control tower man told his wife going to work
"I won't allow tonight to land even a crow", with the pilot who hasn't been on holidays for 3 years doing charter flights, and other interesting details emerging.

[Alice025]

...

Alcohol found in blood of Aman Ataev, 50-yr old Navigator.

...

[vovachan]

...this story has been denied by authorities saying they haven't run any such tests yet

[WHBM]

UPD:

This was not scheduled flight, regular carrier on this line is RusLine (http://www.rusline.aero/) but they use Bombardier CRJ-200 which can take only 50 paxes vs 68 of Tu134. RusAir (http://www.rusair.com/) is charter and business carrier.
I am presuming, from piecing elements together, that this was actually the RusLine flight No. 243 daily schedule from Moscow (and operating pretty much on time), but the regular CRJ had been replaced on this day by a subchartered Tu134 from RusAir (any connection ? Possibly not).

[Kulverstukas]

the regular CRJ had been replaced on this day by a subchartered Tu134 from RusAir

And I have no information if this crew flew this destination before. Also there is rumour (from crew relatives) that they was not much flew together (Cpt was new to the company).

Also this airfield is (as Smolensk, agian :() half military.

[Alice025]

vovachan,
I am very sorry, and very glad it isn't so. Also read the Investigaion committee denies this media "news".

[DeRodeKat]

Typical case: non-precision approach, poor visibility, descent below MDA, crash as a result. Not much to talk about

[Kulverstukas]

Interfax today post that all CVR was fully decoded. But most inetersting part is "as was mentioned before, CPT was not in the cabin at the time of incident".

[liider]

Final report published (in Russian).

http://www.mak.ru/russian/investigations/2011/report_ra-65691.pdf

"The reason for the crash of the Tu-134A RA-65 691 during the approach in the conditions worse than weather minimums of the airfield, aircraft and Captain, was the failure of the crew to make the decision to go-around and descending the aircraft below the minimum safe altitude in the absence of visual contact with approach lights and landmarks, which led to a collision with the trees and the ground in controlled flight.
Contributing factors were:
- Poor communication in the crew and resource management (CRM) from the Captain in the performance of the approach, which expressed in the subordinance of the Captain to the navigator's instructions, who was in a mild degree of alcoholic intoxication, and the missing of any activity of the FO on the final stage of the emergency flight.
- Flight navigator being in a state of mild intoxication.
- Unjustified weather forecast 18:00 06/20/2011 03:00 06/21/2011 and the forecast for landing from 19:00 to 21:00 06/20/2011 by height of cloud, visibility and severe weather - fog, as well as the discrepancy transferred to the crew for 30 or 10 minutes before the landing of the weather at the airport Petrozavodsk actual weather that occurred at the time of SARS in the OMB-LMM INC = 12 °.
- The failure of the crew to check the ARC and other devices for integrated control of aircraft on final, while using information navigator satellite navigation system KLN-90B (in violation of the Flight Manual Supplement for the Tu-134 (see Section 4, paragraph 0.11)). "

[Christodoulidesd]

Contributing factors were:

- unsatisfactory crew resource management by the commander who effectively removed the first officer from the control loop in the final stages of the accident flight and who subordinated himself to the navigator showing increased activity however in the state of mild alcoholic intoxication.

- the navigator was in the state of mild alcoholic intoxication



I wonder why everyone yells when some people shout the obvious about drunken Russian pilots.

[pee]

Precisely, 0,81‰. Much too much generally speaking, maybe not enough for him? :\

[SLF305]

0,81‰I presume that's the equivalent to .08% used in the US. Note the single zero in the denominator versus the double zero in the published report. That's generally the legal limit in the US for driving an automobile.
I think you would be dead at 0.8% blood alcohol content.
???

[vovachan]

yes this ‰ is the "per mil" sign, which is is 1/10 of a percent
PS:
.08 BAC may be borderline legal under the very generous US law but driving in this condition is NOT a good idea

[Saintsman]

Russian air crash navigator was drunk

One of the pilots at the controls of a Russian passenger plane that crashed in June killing 47 people was drunk on the job, an investigation has found.

Poor journalism from The Telegraph Russian air crash navigator was drunk - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8773713/Russian-air-crash-navigator-was-drunk.html). I don't think that it's too difficult to find out the difference between a pilot and a navigator.

[threemiles]

Bendix KLN90B (https://www.bendixking.com/servlet/com.honeywell.aes.utility.PDFDownLoadServlet?FileName=/TechPubs/repository/006-08732-0000_0.pdf")

setup by a mildly intoxicated navigator for final approach

[757_Driver]

Less than three months to final report. Makes you wonder why it takes others so long.Because the others do it properly and don't just look for the superficial causes.

yeah, drunk navigator, pilot bust minimums causes crash. end-of. what a load of tosh.

What about the systems that let those people be there with that attitude? what about the society that thinks drinking on the job is normal? etc etc etc.

A decent air accident investigation system that finds the real systemic causes and a culture and society that addresses them is why most of Europe, the US and others have a very good aviation safety system.
Russia has none of those attributes and has the worst, or very close to the worst, aviation safety record on the planet.
I utterly detest the following phrase as its used by all the elf-and-safety idiots but "safety is no accident" is a fairly relevent phrase.

[vovachan]

The report is actually quite revealing. The captain had a hard landing classified as an incident for which he was supposed to be busted down to f/o but in the end he just quietly resigned with a clean record. Found another job, new employer none the wiser. The medical pre-flight check which might have caught the navigator, happened only on paper.

[ST27]

Less than three months to final report. Makes you wonder why it takes others so long. We seem to be regressing.

I was recently struck by how quickly the accident report of Northwest 2 was issued in 1938. It involved a brand-new Lockheed Super Electra that lost the upper parts of its vertical stabilizers near Bozeman, MT, due to flutter, and crashed in a flat spin. The investigators were confronted with the proverbial smoking hole, yet the final report was presented to the Bureau of Air Commerce only 19 days after the accident.

During that interval, the investigators made a site visit, identified that components were missing from the accident scene, interviewed eye witnesses, collected data on the flight and the crew, oversaw a series of tests at the manufacturer to confirm the suspicion that flutter was the cause, developed a correction with the manufacturer and tested it, held four days of public hearings, agreed on a cause, and wrote the report.

This was before CVRs, FDRs, computer models, entrenched politics, bureaucracy and lawyers. I guess life was simpler in those days.

[surplus1]

Sorry to be so uninformed but would someone please explain to me what a "navigator" is on a Russian airliner. Where does he sit, what are his qualifications/training, what is his authority with relation to the Captain? What exactly does he do? Why is this person necessary at all?

[HarryMann]

We seem to be regressing.

I was recently struck by how quickly the accident report of Northwest 2 was issued in 1938. It involved a brand-new Lockheed Super Electra that lost the upper parts of its vertical stabilizers near Bozeman, MT, due to flutter, and crashed in a flat spin. The investigators were confronted with the proverbial smoking hole, yet the final report was presented to the Bureau of Air Commerce only 19 days after the accident.

During that interval, the investigators made a site visit, identified that components were missing from the accident scene, interviewed eye witnesses, collected data on the flight and the crew, oversaw a series of tests at the manufacturer to confirm the suspicion that flutter was the cause, developed a correction with the manufacturer and tested it, held four days of public hearings, agreed on a cause, and wrote the report.

This was before CVRs, FDRs, computer models, entrenched politics, bureaucracy and lawyers. I guess life was simpler in those days. Must say, the very same thoughts struck me when over a year after the BA38, 777 Heathrow threshold arrival... RR still hadn't developed a new FOHE by then. During the war they produced a new version of the Merlin nearly every 3 months... and even quicker when the FW190 was chasing Spit Vs all over the sky.

[barit1]

I was recently struck by how quickly the accident report of Northwest 2 was issued in 1938. It involved a brand-new Lockheed Super Electra that lost the upper parts of its vertical stabilizers near Bozeman, MT, due to flutter, and crashed in a flat spin. The investigators were confronted with the proverbial smoking hole, yet the final report was presented to the Bureau of Air Commerce only 19 days after the accident.


Coincidentally I found this BAC report 36 years ago when I was writing a type study on the L-14. NWA was the launch customer but KLM was close behind. KLM's Dr. Albert Plesman liked the ship, but he perceived a mild flutter when riding in the aft cabin. He insisted on mass balanced rudders, where the NWA ships had plain hinged ones.

Plesman thus was soon vindicated, and the surviving NWA ships were retrofitted.

[WHBM]

Sorry to be so uninformed but would someone please explain to me what a "navigator" is on a Russian airliner. Where does he sit, what are his qualifications/training, what is his authority with relation to the Captain? What exactly does he do? Why is this person necessary at all?
They do rather what you would expect. It's a junior position in progression (in Russian "pilot second class") and they do all the routing and position fixing, both pre-flight and as you are going along.

This aircraft (65691 apparently, dating from 1981) was a classic "glass nose" Tu134A where the pilots sit on either side of the flight deck, and there is a rather claustrophobic tunnel between them, and a couple of steps down, into the equally claustrophobic navigators station which is right in the nose where the radome would otherwise be. It was a standard Soviet approach on many larger types. All the navigation kit, including modern kit like GPS units, is installed down there.

File:Tu-134A in Ulyanovsk Aircraft Museum.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tu-134A_in_Ulyanovsk_Aircraft_Museum.JPG)

Later Tu134, especially those exported, had a different approach with a conventional radome, and the nav sat on a jump seat behind the pilots. The tunnel to the glass nose is covered by a small curtain on the flight deck - on at least one occasion a hijack was thwarted after the perpetrator had forcibly got the pikots attention by the nav suddenly springing out from behind the curtain and grabbing him, in best Boys' Own story style.