Salute!

IMHO, the CVR will be more revealing than the FDR.

The FDR will show the impact speed and altitude and heading and control inputs, but how the plane got there will likely be revealed by the CVR.

Yes, I thought this, but I'm waiting with baited breath to see if they do more than gasp at their last seconds.


This now, is the whole issue. Planned, or trapped? No one can know, and I pray those poor souls had time to reveal to us why they were there in that wrong place at the wrong time.

I think that Gerry Soejatman did a good job in his blog articles to explain how these pilots could end up heading for Mount Salak, without doing anything unusually stupid or daring. (For those who haven't read them: He based his analysis on photos taken in the cockpit on the first demo flight, where both pilots' flight displays and the paper maps on their clipboards can be seen. And he points out that the main difference between the two flights was a change of runway, from 24 to 06.)

Nevertheless, this accident should never have happened in an aircraft equipped with EGPWS (or TAWS, or T2CAS, or whatever you call it). That's what I'd hope to learn from the CVR: was the TAWS trying to warn them at all?

How are you qualifying the descent below MSA over those mountains?

This accident should never have happened in any IFR equipped aircraft on an IFR flight plan, regardless with or without the terrain avoidance gadgets.
It´s wise to plan and fly in a way, that those systems keep quiet all the time.

It might be interesting, wether the system was operational, operational but malfunctioning, operational but not switched on, but mainly in relevance to the mindset of the crew.

If operating IFR, then ATC will have a large part to play in this accident.
When would ATC give clearance in mountainous terrain below MSA unless for emergency reasons? Other than when established on the approach.
My understanding is that they are responsible for your terrain clearance while IFR. It is our responsibility to comply as far as able with those requests.

I would hardly think the approach would take them up a mountain valley when the is obviously clear ground either side of the mountain.

The request for this new lower altitude came from the crew. Shouldn´t be some thinking and sense before requesting? And also before complying with an ATC request?

And obviously the crew was not able to comply with their own request granted by ATC, as the flight ended in the mountains.

Or am i misssing something?

You are gravely mistaken. Except under the unique case of "radar vectors" ATC are never responsible for your terrain clearance. It is pilots' responsibility to refuse or delay execution of any clearance w.r.t. charted minimum altitudes. ATC is there to separate us from traffic, not terrain.

Flightdetent, absolutely correct. I am still waiting info as to what the exact flight plan was, what was executed in real life afterwards and if they did cancel IFR at some point, or if words like : "request descent visual" were used .

The R/T exchange recording is available already and would clear that up very quickly.

You can dress this up any way you like, but this is a catastrophe for Russian civil aviation. As a previous poster has alluded to the Sukhoi was made in Russia but filled with numerous western systems. It was a genuine and credible attempt to break into the Airbus/Boeing/Embraer world, but it has, alas, fallen at the first hurdle. Most western airlines would be extremely wary of associating themselves with Russian designs, due to their perceived association with lower levels of technology and an 'accident culture'. Trouble has followed Russian-built aircraft and their associated airlines since aviation began due to all sorts of unpalatable reasons - but principally the operating culture they have found themselves in. Whether it is this crash or the Polish presidential debacle, the same basic issues always jump up - and are always shoved down again in a West versus East entrenched debate.

It is clearly not true to say that every Western pilot, engineer, legislator, supervisory body, airline owner, airport operator etc is better at their job than their Eastern European colleagues. What is true to say, however, is that a frightening cultural mix of complacency, accepted deviation from SOPs and established practice, corruption, poor maintenance, financial pressure to compete regardless of the shortcuts taken, distorted cockpit gradients and poor training repeatedly come together to bring disaster in that part of the world. Until someone in the East is willing to humbly recognise the truth of this and accept that, for all the West's faults (which are numerous), Western aviation is many years ahead in all these areas and consequently has a vastly superior safety record, this situation will never change.

I have no doubt the Captain of this aircraft was a very capable guy and probably a way better pilot than I am. Nonetheless, he lost sight of the fact this his number one job was not to kill everyone on board and that everything else had to be distant seconds and thirds. How could this happen to a guy of that talent and capability? Culture, culture and culture. It was somehow acceptable for him to not research correctly the terrain and weather issues on this potentially dangerous flight. It was somehow acceptable for him to request a flight below MSA in IMC. These are harsh words but the truth hurts. How will this ever change? Someone very high up in Russia, which still has massive influence over aviation in many parts of the world beyond its own borders, needs to say enough is enough. A root and branch assessment of every aspect of Russian thinking and practice needs to take place which results in fundamental changes to the way business is done in aviation. Will that ever happen in my lifetime? Probably not, but unless it does there will be numerous more accidents like this with the same old wrangling - but with absolutely nothing done to change the inevitable. Safety is not an accident - it is planned.

NSF sobering thoughts.
One of the problems here is that many passengers have no choice but to use their own national airline and I suppose we tend to accept culture within culture. However we also live in a world where passengers of Western cultures seek low prices and some of the central european airlines offer just that. These passengers blindly assume that the standards of any airline will match those of their homeland and this is blatantly not so.
As seems to emerge here, it's not only the engineering and sophistication of the aircraft but the culture within some countries which leads to an arrogance in people with positions of responsibility and rank.
Passengers always have some degree of 'fear of flying' and publicity aimed at the travelling public will never be totally honest about the variation in risk depending on the carrier chosen. Of course it may be 'safer than crossing the road' but depends on which road you choose to cross.

Related to what ATC may or may not do, just a personal anecdote, but a few years back I was on an IFR flight plan from Bali to Halim and descending inbound from the north east, when the controller told me that I was "visual and clear for visual approach"...only problem was that I was still solid IMC in haze generated by the forest fires and had to reject the clearance and insist on a procedure.......just don't think we can take for granted what ATC may or may not have been thinking or doing here.

No doubt Russians have some of the best pilots in the world and this cpt was probably one of their best ,so why is this happening?

I used to fly for a major EU airline for more than 30yrs in various positions, e.g. FE, FO, SFO and as a CPT (all without further duties). When the **** hit the fan, most of the time it wasn't a standard crew compostion. Managing CPTs, additional crew member in the cockpit, two CPTs (no FO) and so on.

Too bad there are no statistics about that phenomenon.

Harbsheim (AF), Wien (Hapag Lloyd), Warsaw (LH), Perpignan (XL) and many others come to my mind...

Bishop of Hounslow,

With all respect but...
Stop behaving like a typical British **** who thinks shat only his country is God's gift to aviation where in reality, they are anything BUT.

Russian design has always been as good or better than anything made in the West, especially any crap coming from the UK.

The last European Testpilot who crashed his airliner ( A333) was... British and was solely to blame to destroy a perfect operating aircraft.

British ATC is using NON ICAO phraseolegy that is not only non-standard, but also dangerous (eg. turn left heading 010 degrees:ugh::=) Cleared ILS is just that, not "decend with the glideslope" bull.

Do NOT compare the Russian operating conditions with European ones. Have you ever flown in Russian Winter?

I fly for a local airline in Indonesia and ATC will not give you clearance to descend below MEA/MORA/MSA unless you declare your flight conditions as VMC.

"Someone very high up in Russia, which still has massive influence over aviation in many parts of the world beyond its own borders, needs to say enough is enough"

Absolutely 100%.

However our "lame duck" "yes man" Mededev blamed the planes, especially after the TU and Jak killer accidents of last year.

W:mad: can you do when the actions are laughable from a string puppet, who then becomes "prime minister".

Massive influence?
So long as an ex-KGB man is at the top of a corrupt vertical power structure, which he personally built,-

There is NOT ONE HOPE of a change in "culture".
Innocent PAX will continue to die in plane accidents at the average rate of a total hull loss every 2-3 months, whether the A/C is 30 yrs old or brand new, whether it's warm summer sun or -30C.

That should make everyone shudder, but it's a statistical fact of life.

Often the pilots are absolute heroes in comparison, landing a failed TU154 on a disused military airbase 400m too short in midwinter, or out of control after some engineer wires the controls wrong, or improvising by landing an AN on a frozen lake.

All you can say is W the ...:ok:

Russia and Ukraine purvey an almost total lack of any concept of a safety culture.

Whether it's boats that capsize drowning scores of innocent kids, night clubs that people light fireworks inside with inflammable ceilings, driving in totally clapped out trucks or cars over clapped out roads, keeping trains running with absent shock absorbers, distorted rails, running turbine generators overspeed with clapped out and hairline cracked turbines, or flying with snow on wings...
(There you go that's accounted already for about 600 dead people)

You want any more examples from 2010-11?

Did the "snow on wings" thread not say it loud and clear enough, after the Tiumen ATR tragedy?

Absolutely no-one, least of all AFL takes a blind bit of notice & frankly doesn't give a flying :mad:.

I understand from some news sources that the authorities in Indonesia have given up searching for the flight data recorder.

Questions
 

I was about to write the same as Kulverstukas !!
Lets return to the fact finding and not speculate about differences in culture or habits or what so ever.
I have copied a map that Mr. Soejatman has published in his blog. Origin is from Lido/Lufthansa.
http://www.globalsim.web.id/publicse...04/HLP_AFC.jpg

If he - Mr. Soejatman or his friend reports correct - the crew of the SSJ didn´t have this map on board, instead an approach chart and an airport map and their electronic flight display. According the source neither of these did show the situation of the terrain they were flying to.
Again if this is true, where should they - the crew retrieve the necessary information from to be able to refuse the given unconditioned clearance.
I agree with the foremost posters that the final responsibility for terrain clearance remains with the crew - except for Radar vestors -

However, let me ask a rethorical question: What answer can the request of an IFR-flight to descend below MORA and MSA expect from ATC ??
I believe its either: Negative, descend not possible due to terrain !
or conditional clearance: cleared to descend to 6000 ft after passing 25 DME inbound to Halim VOR.
Said this I come back to questions posted before.
1. Why did the crew ask for a descend below MORA and MSA ??
2. Why did the responsible controller approve that request unconditioned ?
3. How well was the crew briefed by locals and how useful were the
information they had at hand for their flight ?
I think it´s not easy "black and white" - all blame to the crew!!

All Systems Normal
 

Excerpt from news article suggests that the aircraft and its systems were functioning correctly up to impact. This based on early analysis of CVR

Black Box Shows Superjet Had No Malfunctions | Russia | RIA Novosti

As I've mentioned above in my earlier post, it's standard here, that when a pilot request to descend below the MORA/MSA, the controller will ask the pilot for the flight conditions. Approval to continue the descent below MORA/MSA will be given if the pilot reports back that flight conditions are VMC. The onus is on the pilot declare that he is visual with the terrain.

Even if a controller gives you clearance to descend below MORA/MSA and flight conditions are IMC, would you, as a responsible pilot, continue your descent below MORA in IMC? My point being the PIC is ultimately responsible for the safe conduct of his/her flight, despite what ATC instructions are given.