Tu 204 down near DME
 

Just heared on morning news, apparently inbound from Egypt, 8 crew o/b, made 'emergency landing' in the forest a kilometre or so from Domodedovo. First reports suggest all/most crew made it with injuries. No details on airline yet.

Apparently the same aircraft had an incident yesterday, it was a pax flight to Hurghada, aircraft returned to DME after crew reported smoke on board (yet circled for two hours to burn off fuel !?). The accident flight was an empty return flight with just crew on board. Two serious injuries, two light, others made it without. Accident happened 0:45 GMT (3:45 am Moscow time). It appears the aircraft remained largely intact.

Update:

'Emergency landing' now changed to 'went off radar' about one kilometre from threshold, in 'poor' weather conditions. Sounds like a fatigued crew returning from a long overnight flight making an approach at the worst time of the day, and ending up in the woods a kilometre short of the runway...

Some surces say it was an 'Ulyanovsk based' carrier. Could only be Aviastar, which while not based there, is affiliated with the Ulyanovsk aircraft plant (which manufactures the Tu-204).

the airline seems to be Aviastar. the aircraft had hydraulic problems on the leg from Moscow to Egypt. Check Tu-204 Passenger Jet Lands in Forest: One Wing Lost, Fuselage Cracked - Pravda.Ru and Incident: Aviastar-TU T204 near Moscow on Mar 21st 2010, hydraulics problems

ITAR-TASS Report
 

Report from ITAR-TASS:
ITAR-TASS

It reports two serious injuries out of 8 crew.

The plane was "partially damaged" with both wings torn off. Partially? Sounds like a write-off to me....:confused:

It's the same aircraft, RA-64011, "the Omsk Glider"

ASN Aircraft accident Tupolev 204-100 RA-64011 Omsk Airport (OMS)


Not speculating, but....

The Kathryn Report: Passenger jet crash lands near Moscow airport (With Video)

Google Translator Russian News

I love the sentence in the first link "The plane does not have any major damage" Guess they didn't see the photo on www.flightglobal.com :eek: Bit of speed tape and she will be fine :rolleyes:
Doesn't square too well with "The search for the flight recorders is underway" :hmm:
Try looking under the tail, still seems to be attached ;)

Some video here:

BBC News - Russian plane crash lands in forest near Moscow

The a/c still had fuel on board when it went down according to emergency services. Heavy fog in the area. Possible failure to set altimeter correctly.

quote: I love the sentence in the first link "The plane does not have any major damage" Guess they didn't see the photo on www.flightglobal.com http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...milies/eek.gif Bit of speed tape and she will be fine :rolleyes:

Anyone competent enough with PhotoShop to give us the idea?:*

Jack

Wow, what brilliant insight you have. I don't know why we bother having aircrash/incident investigators. You could have waited a bit before offering us this little nugget. It normally takes at least 10 answers before the theorists start!

Oh, come on, surely that's a little harsh, especially after the BBC have revealed the hitherto unsuspected existence of a factory manufacturing Tupolev airliners at Hurghada!! (see blurb beneath BBC video link)

Why do these dimwit journos not proof-read anything to see if what was written matches what was intended? Idiots.

Usable fuel?

Affirmative

So Evanelpuss...

does that make your : "Wow, what brilliant insight you have." post due at #11?

It was just a supposition based on the currently available evidence...get off his back!

FD:ok:

Thanks, FD :)

Actually I DO have some firsthand insight into how some of these marginal russian outfits operate.

DME-HRG is around 4 hours, if they were back at 3am departure was around 6pm, allowing for turnaround. Add pre-flight, that's ten hours, all in darkness. Based on the number of crew on board, it appears they carried a relief flight crew to bring the a/c back, but we all know how comfortable 'rest' one can have on an a/c full of pax in charter config...

I have had the personal experience of taking numerous flights back from the middle-east in the small hours, even if you can force yourself some sleep before the flight, at 3am your mind is just not the same.

I've said nothing about the cause, simply noted that a crew made a low visibility approach in darkness at the circadian low after being awake all night (deliberately avoiding 'on duty' here, these days even the more shadey outfits make sure to stay legal, on paper at least), and ended up in the woods a kilometre short of the runway. Whatever went wrong, those guys were certainly not in the most ideal condition to deal with it.

Moscow Times reporting the pilots declared an emergency
 

According to the article; "The plane crashed in heavy fog at 2:35 a.m. after pilots radioed controllers that they needed to make an emergency landing. It was unclear what had prompted the pilots' distress call." There's also an ominous reference to "a violation of air traffic safety regulations".
-reported in the Moscow Times link here

First unofficial information is that autopilot was INOP or switched off during approach, they performed a manual approach...

Perhaps it's a language translation problem between our english words "need" versus "want" to and the absence of a reason given for the emergency landing.

This phrase has left some ppl scratching their heads - does it mean the engines were actually operating or they were capable of operating?

The russian word is "работоспособны", which means they were capable of operating (functional, in working order), not what they were actually doing at time of impact.