Waiting patient for the first official and preliminary report issued by the competent investigation teams, what i really could foresee now its some dark clouds hovering above the Tatarstan Airlines roofs...having in mind all the previous Russian Accidents&Incidents with other Russian Airline(rs), i cannot see any deviation here by the MAK and Rosaviatsia policy on the crash aftermath...lets hope im wrong, just my 2 cents.
TAK its already starting slowly their new Airbus fleet for some time.

Also the old concrete runways at DME are in horrendous state.

According to the NY Times, "President Vladimir V. Putin ordered officials to set up a commission to investigate the crash, his spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told local news agencies."

Isn't this a bit unusual? Isn't there already an agency in Russia like the US NTSB whose responsibility it is to investigate the causes of these crashes?

May this be due to the two political passengers on board, who happen to be "Aleksandr V. Antonov, 56, the regional head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, known as the F.S.B., as well as Irek Minnikhanov, 24, a son of the president of the Tatarstan region, Rustam Minnikhanov," according to the Times?

Investigations in a causes like this is usually done by MAK. I suppose that MAK provides investigation in this case too. Putin has tried hard for long time to change to improve safety level in Russia. I think that the participation of minister in the commission is intended for emphasizing of high importance. And if they find cause at the Tatarsan Airlines, it won´t be surprise for me, if they lose their AOC in the moment. Surely, the death of the son of president surely affected Putin´s decision.


The crew start to provide GA - was it stall and was it caused by low airspeed or high AoA? Or flap problem?

video of the crash site

Many moons ago, when OKC was a young & spritely First Officer (I did say it was many moons ago :rolleyes: ), one recalls doing a go-around (in a B737-300), during which the aircraft started shaking quite dramatically, i.e. in a manner very akin to the aerodynamic buffet one might expect if one were approaching a stall, but which struck me as weird because, if anything, at that particular moment, the aircraft was going so damned fast that we were more at risk of tearing the flaps off the wing than of stalling (this being caused by the bloke in the LHS being new on type, and the two-engined performance of a lightly loaded, B737 somewhat getting the better of him, and that he failed to press the TOGA button, shoved the thrust levers to the firewall, had turned his Flight Director fully off, and likewise failed to pull the nose high enough to temper the rapidly increasing airspeed, and then forgot to call for flap retraction as the airspeed increased)... but, why did the aircraft shake as it did?

Well, it turns out that what he'd also done, prior to landing, was to 'release the brakes' (you might like to guess at his previous type ;) ?) and apparently that then set in motion a sequence of events that would only occur during a go-around (and which was a known bug in the system and admitted to by Boeing) which seemingly then caused the hydraulic system to start 'pulsing', and that in turn caused the rudder to 'wiggle', and that in turn (due the secondary affect of yaw) caused the wings to start wobbling, and the whole thing felt just like the approach to a stall. Well it certainly got my attention and I was glad it was during a nice clear day over the desert and not at night in a cloudy & snowy sky!

The B737 in a two-engine go-around, if not properly managed, can be a real handful !

Seems like that's the moment of crash...

Although, the websource has a very questionable reputation. :\


?????? ?? ??????? ???????? ? LIFE | NEWS

Reason for G.A.
 

Perhaps crew announced they were unstabilized during G.A.
Was ANC applied or was it CNA this time?Aviate Navigate Communicate...and the most important part of Avigate is TOGA and safe Pitch GA attitude..and reconfigure on schedule..perhaps too much lift was removed too soon?Perhaps there was crew transition confusion during PF/PNF duty swap during the GA? We shall find out in due time..let us hope!

There's a video showing moment of crash... look at the angle... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koUV3xRIraU

according to media/ATC report - the crew's last communication was -
"We are going around. We have non-landing configuration"

Go around due to not stabilized approach ..... It is a fact.
What had been done wrong DURING a go-around???
Wait for FDR!!! On available video only stall could be suspected... But the reason???

From the above, a credible possible scenario :-

Flap problems so crew attempts a flapless landing.
Flapless landing misjudged, too deep so go around. (easily done)
Go around without flaps is not a good idea = stall/spin. (very easily done)

MAK(Russian NTSB) reported that both FDR and CVR have been found and they are substantially damaged

Before we get the usual "Russian Cowboys" comments going, let's wait for an initial report. The Pm's comment about "not being configured" or however he worded it are a little cryptic, but if they had a flaps/slats issue in gusting conditions then they were in a tight place. 3 landing attempts, maybe PIC thought their situation needed a nice long runway (3,700m meters) was necessary, maybe wx at alternates was terrible.. Lets wait before throwng them under a train

Ladies and Gentlemen, the video of security camera's on site are horrific.

Please beware before watching, this is not a nice scene...

Surveillance cameras recorded on video Boeing crash in Kazan

How about this...

1) Improper maintenance leading to

2) Vulnarable* control surface(s) which combines with

3) Gusty and/or strong winds and maybe maybe

4) Some element of human factors

and when all of that combines during a night approach you get the worst case of nosedive captured on camera. Brrr, that little snippet was really something...

*By vulnerable I here take into account what the previous passengers said, and pair it with the expertise on flaps/slats settings and also the age of the aircraft. "Vulnerable" meaning "subjected to stronger than expected/designed for forces during some period of time, leading to failure(sp?) of one or more vital pieces of design". A lot of assumptions made here as you see.

the one bit about releasing brakes and rudder wiggling is sure news to me

esp after the rudder hardover near pittsburgh


subsequent device to reduce hydraulic pressure based on radio alt (700feet)

we shall see

gusty winds, even to 30 knots if closely aligned with runway shouldn't be too much for plane and pilot.

please post exact winds both steady and gust at times of approach.

Is this what you're looking for?
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...ml#post8158580

Skyjob

The assessment from the video seems spot on.
From the camera angle the aircraft comes down near vertical straight into the ground.

It would be hard to transition from a normal approach and get to a vertical attitude in a 737 in 700 ft at approach speed without rolling into a vertical attitude.

Even with a flap asymmetry that stops transition of flaps should not leave you in a situation that lets the aircraft be uncontrollable.
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the pilots, it sure looks like a control panel issue.

Flash on Video 1 sec before hitting the Ground
 

Any ideas out there what might be the cause of the bright flash about 1 sec before hitting the ground (00:04 after start)? Cut through electricity cables, rolling such that landing light faces camera briefly, etc? Not a pretty sight.

flash
 

Or bright aileron strobe? they show a couple of times before that anyway (1st as a camera reflection).

Anyway, would vertical rudder / yaw problems a la flash airlines possible cause this nose-dive?

I'm not so sure about that.

Go-around, TOGA power, counter the pitch up, inattention to attitude, huge pitch-up, grab thrust levers back to aid pitch down, stall (Or minor variations on that theme) would do it. Classic 737 pitch-couple trap.

We have at last an unquestionable document of that fantastic ball of fire witnesses claim to have seen just before impact in almost all aviation accidents.
According to my humble opinion, because:
1) It is easy to estimate that the aircraft had an absurd attitude of c.ca -90° in the last few seconds of flight.
2) At 00:05 video time a strong lightning, likely a sign of an explosion, is clearly visible.
3) Two major political figures were on board
I seriously suspect tha it was a terrorist attack.
I'll be happy to be contradicted

The security video does look disturbingly reminiscent of the NTSB recreations of the US 737 rudder hard-over incidents though...

Board Meeting Animations - Uncontrolled Descent and Collision with Terrain USAir Flight 427 Boeing 737-300, N513AU, Near Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, September 8, 1994

DOVES:

Regarding your point 2, no the flash at 4s is not an explosion. As someone pointed out already it is just a strobe light on the plane. You can see a previous flash at 2s into the video, reflected from the ground.

I'm sure someone might know the 737 strobe interval, but 2s is about right compared to this video:
Any explosion is not going to be so brief (single frame) even at the low frame rate of the video.

VFD:
even if you were to roll inverted and suddenly pull back on the yoke do a splits-s it would be hard for 73 to get into that attitude below 1000' unless the aircraft were to enter the initial stages of a spin ( incipient spin ) or some sort of catastrophic structural failure..

If the video being shown is the correct video showing the actual accident, no reason to believe it is not, it reminds me of the old rudder hard over accidents involving 737s years ago.

The two I remember the best was the one at Colorado Springs and the one at Pittsburgh (I think) as I flew over both accident sites.

The rudder hard over caused accidents were near vertical impacts.

I thought that Boeing had fixed that problem. Something to think about anyway and I'm not saying that is the cause of this accident.

The rudder hard over caused accidents were near vertical impacts.

So did SE go rounds with no rudder: lets' wait and see then add wise contributions instead of speculations. The FDR should be quite modern; CVR also.

BBC talking about vertical landing and journalist talking about vibrations when landing at Moscow on previous leg. Crap concrete runways do tend to give some vibration on landing. Vertical landing suggests it was a bloody helicopter not fixed wing. I do wish the instant expert reggie spotters would STFU and let the pro's get on with the real job of finding out what really happened. Uninformed speculation does not help. Just think that there are thousands of other 737 crews and passengers out there flying the same aircraft
Rant over.

OK, I'm not a flying expert, however I know enough about aerodynamics and the outline capabilities of a B737-sized aircraft.
Given that this aircraft was initiating a GA went everything went really pear-shaped (following the unstable approach that is), then how the dickens does it end with such a high (apparently from the brief video) almost 90deg nose dive into the ground?? I mean, I wouldn't expect that it could be achieved by anything other than an astonishingly savage pull up, to near vertical climb to stall, wing over and dive....especially to remain anywhere near the vicinity of the airport security cameras?

edit: .....or stall, tumble and dive?

video by security camera
 

AS FAR AS I CAN SEE THAT A NOSE DIVE!!!!

As far as I can gather from this footage, the aircraft is in a steep dive, and wings in a steep angle of bank...

From the motion of the security camera it's clear that the wind was howling even near the ground. Likely a go-around handling mistake.

I agree one hundred percent, that is why I posted this;

Never the less, by studying past similar accidents we can sometimes solve new accidents if there are similar patterns/events. I know, been to the school, read the books, watched the films, took the tests and passed them.

If I was assigned to this accident, the rudder issue would be one of the first things looked at, if for no other reason than to dismiss it as a cause as soon as possible.

I'm sure we will hear the probable cause sooner or later, hopefully.

What bank? All I see (after several pause/rewinds) is a level nose-dive.....tail square-on to camera? Have I missed something?

At 90 degrees nose down, bank angle is pretty irrelevant.

Me too, bank would also result in some kind of rolling during the dive.

To me it looks like the stabilizer suddenly let go his downward force, due to whatever reason (separation? tail stall?).
I find it hard to come up with another scenario which would result in such a sudden dive.

While it obviously doesn't happen every day, it is a notorious characterisitic of aircraft with under-wing (below center of gravity) thrust lines to pitch up significantly if TOGA power is applied. It has happened before (fortunately, usually with prompt corrective action from the crew). c.f. TAROM Flight 381, 1994, Paris-Orly.

Extended lift devices (slats, flaps) can exacerbate the pitch-up tendency.

The 747 at Bagram managed to take off, climb, stall and crash within the airport boundaries. Given that a go-around likely began well before reaching the runway threshold, I don't see why a 737 could not end up with the same results well within the airport boundaries.

I'm not saying that that is what happened in Kazan - I'm just pointing out that it is well within the realms of possibility.

One other factor I haven't seen noted yet is that Kazan is undergoing major reconstruction, with one large runway partially built, and the other perhaps a former taxiway being used as a runway (cf Google maps).

No reason this would lead to a crash directly - but the airport layout (combined with weather/visibility problems) could have contributed to confusion and the need for a go-around or multiple go-arounds (whichever turns out to be the fact.)

Good to know however personal experiences go only so far. Russia (and the area of the former USSR) still has triple the aircraft accident rate compared with the rest of the world. And like the 2008 crash of another Boeing 737 in Russia (also landing) at Perm can show a breath-taking level of incompetence among the crew. But I full agree about the MAK - very competent accident investigation team.

The airport in question had 2 parallel runways. One is currently being converted into a taxiway, that's the reason for the construction equipment