As a long time lurker I won't argue with all your observations on thread arcs; but as an SLF with long-standing interest in aviation accident forensics* I'll chime in anyway. :}

Could this be a case of running afoul of a mountain rotor while sightseeing, a'la BOAC 911 and Mt. Fuji in the 60's?

Back to lurking....

* As a wee lad I was always fascinated by the forensic details teased out of bent metal and recorders as reported in the AvWeeks that Dad would bring home from his IT (or whatever they called it back then) job with EAL.

It is already bad enough as it is. The question however is why would someone descend to below mountain elevation to increase the risk of a CFIT? Everything from then on is speculation.:(

The Journalist on Twitter
 

The Journalist who has been covering the flight info is keeping his tweeter updated for the latest images and info.

I don't speak Russian, but maybe someone can translate?

https://wwww.twitter.com/#!/dolyasergey

Basically it's about waiting for hellys to depart and rechecking possible SAR locations.

P.S Nothing on topic of location/status of a/c unfortunately :(

Looks like a military SAR helo has launched from the latest post on Sergey's blog.

Photographer and others on the flight deck whilst airborn (apparently) on an earlier flight.
How would you rate this scene in terms of a distraction that is capable of effecting flight safety..?
MobileMe Gallery



Apparently showing a few minor dents on a leading edge.
MobileMe Gallery

Why would he descend? Why not

Perhaps to enhance the experience of the passengers/buyers to make it memorable?

Salak is a striking volcano with twin summits cleft by a large valley with steep slopes and a whitewater river running through it with several waterfalls.

I know someone who flew a G-IV at 300 feet around part of the coast line of Borneo for the VVIP on onboard.

Bird strike damage, nothing of import

For Russian to English translations follow @athensoh on the twit.

According to officials, they are searching three areas on Salak, including the crater, which is quite small.

Four Super Pumas are on the way apparently

Mr Dolya just said on Tweeter that the helicopters had found the plane.

Elevation 5200 ft. at gps position of crash was tweeted.

CNN reporting wreckage of plane found near MT.SALAK .......REMOTE AREA of west java.the Indonesian minister made a brief report mentioning the news but no news on survivor or any other details were provided.

Search officail said location is on the edge of a cliff on Mt.
Salak near Cijeruk.

Its not that remote, I was around there in February but a landbased SAR party would take several hours to reach it depending on conditions. Airborne SAR could be there in minutes easily

possibly near summit altitude
 

Sergey's blog has retweeted an assertion that the site is at:

06.42.61.3S 106.44.41.2E

Google Earth gives the terrain height at that location as about 6330 feet above sea level. While the summit is several hundred feet higher, this is pretty high up the slope.

[Later edit: to push the rather odd coordinate representation to something Google Earth could accept I substituted spaces for the first two periods, thinking of dd mm ss.s. I failed at to notice that this meant I was asking for 61.3 seconds! Worse, I failed to notice the truncation Google Earth performed. In short, while I accurately transcribed the coordinates as tweeted, including format, my Google Earth-derived estimate of local terrain elevation is almost certainly spurious. ZeeDoktor's suggestion of the intended coordinate seems a better attempt at translation, though I can't say I can match the site photos to that spot.]

Assuming the coordinates are S 06 42.613 and E 106 44.412, this is the position:

S6.7102 E106.7402 - Google Maps

@ZeeDoktor

If your coordinates are correct the elevation at that point is ~1837m (According to Google Earth) which translates to 6027ft.

IF that Google map position is correct, I guess he was seduced by the dramatic scenery. Did he attempt to fly along the axis of the cleft valley?

I was in the lower part of the valley last year and the slopes further up looked to be 70deg if not more

Dolya posted the first photos of the accident site:
Twitpic / dolyasergey

Impact into a near vertical cliff just under a ridge - very reminescent of the Norwegin herc location, here jungle substituting snow.

If the flight path circling the mountain posted yesterday is correct, it appears to be a case of a low level scenic flight gone wrong. Have been on various manufacturer demonstration flights myself, maneouvres that would not be permissible on a revenue passenger service are routinely performed to impress the press and potential buyers.

Better Pics:

Source:
https://twitter.com/#!/lystseva/stat.../photo/1/large
https://twitter.com/#!/lystseva/stat.../photo/1/large

http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/8...z9caaepnlh.jpg

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/397...nncqaarwr3.jpg

I should think that visibility was not zero. However cloud cover on such tropical mountains is very dynamic, clouds can form and shift places literally in seconds. I can easily envision that they were visually aiming for a low pass over the ridge, which became overcast in the last seconds of the flight.

It seems like another lesson learnt the hard way...

Found this link:

Crash: Sukhoi SU95 over Indonesia on May 9th 2012, aircraft impacted mountain

Crash site looks very similar to the one of Airblue 202 at Islamabad two years ago.

It is going to be a hell of a job recovering victims and salvaging components at that site , almost a vertical cliff and dense jungle

Although the name Sukhoi is russian, there is not much russian in the aircraft considering all subsystems including:

Thales (avionics)
Liebherr (with Teploobmennik OJSC and PMZ Voskhod JSC) (Flight Control Systems)
Messier-Dowty (landing gear)
Intertechnique (Zodiac) (fuel system)
BE Aerospace (interior)
Curtiss-Wright Controls (fire protection system)
Honeywell (APU)
IPECO (crew seats)
Parker Hannifin (hydraulic system)
Hamilton Sundstrand (electrical system)
Meggitt Vibro-Meter (engine vibration sensor)
Saint-Gobain Sully (windows)
AeroCell (Nacelles and Thrust Reverser)
SAMCO (Passenger and Cargo doors)
Goodrich Corporation, Aircelle (engine nacelle)

All components are operating worldwide in thousands of flights daily without problems, so it seems it's not a hull related crash.

Can we rely on the sighting of two fuselage parts?

At a first glance, it looks like an impact into the vertical face, but there are two conflicting pieces of information:

One is the said sighting of bits of fuselage, and the other is the GooEarth pic showing an initial impact site. Could it be the main picture is of an impact at an extreme attitude . . . the bulk of the aircraft then sliding down with parts still in tact?

There's not going to be much need for an extensive investigation, by the look of those pics. Mark another one down to "cumulus graniteis".
It appears maybe another 200' in elevation and they'd have cleared the ridge - with perhaps just a "brown corduroy trousers" moment.
That country looks very unforgiving, it looks just like a lot of PNG. Not the best way to go about filling an order book.
My sympathies to friends and relatives of the deceased.

Can't see previous images
 

http://images.theage.com.au/2012/05/...9039-420x0.jpg

If the image function works on PP, this should show the crash site.

Having done a short internship with the NTSB many many moons ago and been to many CFIT accidents, it never ceases to amaze me how many occur within less than 100' of passing over the obstacle...:confused:

Investigation complete. :cool:

The question the real aviators now want to know is...why?

If htey are assmebled and interfaced together properly...

As someone has commented, the impact point can be seen quite readily - slight bank to the right, it appears. Perhaps the beginning of an avoidance manoeuvre or just coincidental?

The question concerning the TAWS was raised earlier, and now will be among the first questions asked regarding system operation, performance and crew response. Whether the sharp turn to the left, shown on a map earlier in the thread, actually occurred is something to find out. If it occurred, why? Finding out the visibility is another obvious question.

Finding the recorders is certainly critical. Hoping they're readable is another matter.

It makes Sergey Dolya's fine series of photographs of the crew, passengers, the airplane now very poignant.

As you can see in this photo Mt Salak can be clear on one side and totally socked in on the other side

File:Mount Salak.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well, not so sure. Keep in mind this is a Russian aircraft in Indonesia of all places. How much faith in those investigative agencies do you have?

I would not be surprised that since was not a commercial flight, they bury the whole thing and make it a private matter.

Honestly, I really doubt we will ever have a credible investigation on this one.

Assembly is made by the subsystem supplier.

If there is an interface problem I suppose there will be a system malfunction on the ground.....and the hull/system has passed the test flight and many more hours.

After all Sukhoi consults with Boeing on design, manufacturing, certification and quality system, supplier management and in addition Boeing is a representative to the technical board.

Me thinks it's human related unfortunately.

Erm... I guess most CFIT incidents occur when a situation of 'only just avoiding impact' sneaks across into 'only just not avoiding impact'! Historically this has often boiled down to 'can't see the ground, but a few feet lower and maybe...'

Question is, how familiar are you with these agencies to make such a statement?

Of all air safety investigative agencies, Russian MAK is one of the most thorough and professional, but sadly they won't be leading this one, as their jurisdiction is only within "air transport", not flying conducted by manufacturers for testing or marketing.

Frankly this already looks like CFIT whilst likely flying outside commercial flight safety procedures. Given that this is a major new-model aircraft (huge investment, big sales push) the obvious conclusion looks like the one least prejudicial to the vested interests. Thus they would be idiots not to make a big show of this being an impartial and transparent investigation. It carries a small risk of evidence leading in an unexpected direction, but less risk (given appearances so far) than if they seem to be hiding something. That could kill the whole project.

The Sukhoi Has Been Found
 

9:53am May 10, 2012

Indonesian rescuers Thursday spotted the wreckage of a missing Russian Sukhoi Superjet that disappeared in mountainous terrain during a demonstration flight with about 50 people aboard.

“The Sukhoi has been found just now,” said Ketut Parwa, search and rescue agency chief for Jakarta, who was coordinating operations. “There is debris spotted by the helicopter, [we have] confirmed it is from the Sukhoi,” he said.

National search and rescue chief Daryatmo said the helicopter’s pilot had spotted wreckage including the Sukhoi logo on the ground.

“We spotted the fragments at the coordinates where we lost contact with the plane,” he told a news conference.

Ali Umri Lubis, spokesman for the search helicopter’s military airbase, said the plane was spotted in the Cijeruk area, near the dormant volcano Mount Salak, close to the city of Bogor in West Java.

Cijeruk is in a mountainous area 2,000 meters above sea level, 80 kilometers southeast of Jakarta. Indonesian officials have said the Sukhoi descended to about 6,000 feet shortly before it vanished.

Juanda, a 41-year-old villager, said he was feeding his chickens on Wednesday when he heard a roar overhead.

“I looked up and saw a huge white plane moving unsteadily just slightly below the mountain summit. It was still way above the trees but veering left and right, and then it disappeared,” he told AFP by telephone from Tenjolaya district, near Mount Salak.

“I heard a sound like firecrackers, but I couldn’t see it anymore.”

By midnight Wednesday, hundreds of rescuers had set up three posts around Mount Salak as they prepared to resume their mission at dawn on Thursday.

Ahmad Rifai, who arrived at the Cidahu rescue base seeking news of his sister, a 30-year-old stewardess who had stood in for a colleague who was supposed to have been on board, broke down as he contemplated her fate.

“Why are rescuers so slow? Why didn’t they start searching for it quickly?” complained Rifai, 48. “If they had been quick, maybe my sister would still be...” he trailed off in mid-sentence.

Yudistira Alex, 43, who had several friends on board, arrived at Cidahu late Wednesday.

“They’re four of my best childhood friends. We are inseparable like brothers,” he muttered between sobs. “I don’t know who to blame, maybe this is fate.”

There were also scenes of grief at the airport in Jakarta late Wednesday, with relatives of passengers sitting on luggage carousels weeping uncontrollably, waiting for information.

Reports of the number on board varied, with local rescue officials saying the plane was carrying 46 people and Trimarga Rekatama, the company responsible for inviting the passengers, saying 50 were on board.

Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency named the captain as Alexander Yablontsev, 57, a veteran pilot.

Agence France-Presse

Salak Mountains Not Suitable for Joy Ride.....
 

An aviation consultant said that flying around the Salak Mountains, which are about 100 kilometers to Jakarta’s south, are not safe for a joy ride.

“Mount Salak has steep terrain,” Gerry Soejatman, an aviation consultant, told Jakarta Globe on Thursday. “It is not recommended for a joy ride — I would recommend Indramayu [West Java] and the Krakatau region. But it might be difficult now because flying to that region might potentially meet traffic from Soekarno Hatta airport.”

Gerry, who in the past, has flown to Mount Salak and Mount Gede for mapping expeditions, said that the pilots, who were from Russia and were reportedly not used to flying in Indonesia, must be painstakingly cautious when considering routes in Java’s mountainous regions.

Gerry said that the Russian Sukhoi jet should have been flying above at least 11,000 feet (3,353 meters) to keep safe distance from the Mount Salak, which is 2,211 meters tall.

“From what I heard, the pilot requested to go at 6,000 feet [1,829 meters],” he said. “They might have requested that because they were not accustom with the weather, or not worried about the weather.”

The pilot, he added, should understand that flight timing in Indonesia is also significant.

“In the morning, the sky is clear with some fog,” Gerry said. “In the late morning, it is clear, but sometimes clouds appear. After lunch, it [varies] on how fast the clouds pile up. The clouds would not have been a problem if it went up higher than 20,000 feet.”

Gerry suspected that the Russian airplane —which left Halim Perdanakusuma airport on Wednesday at 2 p.m. — crashed into the mountain wall.

“If the picture I am seeing is correct, the aircraft didn’t fall,” he said. “It hit the wall of mountain. Therefore the airplane didn’t fall out of the sky.”

You are absolutely right to question this.

The Russians will not want to publish anything that might cast safety concerns over the aircraft, otherwise it will ruin the orders.

By the same token, historically, they will try and blame someone other than the pilots.

Indonesia will not want to take any blame.

Cue finger pointing of "They shouldn't have been cleared to 6000ft" in one direction and "They shouldn't have asked" in the other.