АN2 Driver, I can't hear the record further than the very beginning, perhaps slow internet now, Christmas, will try later on again. (I am absolutely Russian, correct.)

Yes, I also heard the crew or the pilot himself is that famous "somersaulting TU" pilot in the past. Who managed to land that one down on some. empty place. So, qualified, for. emergencies. Experienced pilot, no suspicions in that direction.

There is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't, however in any case the real cause would be "leaked" at some stage.

I am also surprised at the B2 variant used (not that it makes much difference in this case) as I have never actually seen a flyable one in fifteen years plus in Russia and many of the CIS countries (being mainly UZ/KZ/GE) as well as Ukraine... I thought most were withdrawn by the 90's.

AN2 Driver
Alice and Kulverstukas,

you appear to be in Russia, do you speak Russian, if so, could any of you have a look at the ATC sound file posted earlier and maybe do a transcript? The time of interest is not so much before the departure clearance but from then on. What was said, particularly what was this big conversation about 3-4 minutes after the take off.

I'm Russian and I can say that basically you've guessed it right:

AN2 Driver
But it does sound like routine traffic until they start calling him quite urgently.

There's not much else in there.

At 23:54 she (Sochi Tower - young woman's voice) says 'vzlyot razreshayu' which is the permission to take off. Runway 24.
At 28:56 (almost exactly 5 min later) they start trying to reach RA-85572 again but to no avail (most of the attempts can be heard from 29:34).

As far as I can tell most of the conversations from then on (until the attempts to contact 85572) conducted by another dispatcher (an older woman's voice - I think she called herself Sochi Transit) is with another flight.
I'm not a pilot so it's hard for me to follow all of it - I could've said more if the record quality was better.

There is at least one short phrase involving number 85572 by Sochi Tower at 26:43 but I can't decipher what she said.
And at 27:02 there is a short message (by the pilot himself I think... or a dispatcher): "85572 reading you clear". After that another pilot can be heard engaged in a convo with Sochi Transit.

But they are cancelled, for passenger airlines. As noisy and consume too much fuel and don't pass modern int'l standards. They must be, stayed on defense ministry balance.

Putin has declared 26th as National Mourning Day after a tragic plane crash that killed all 93 on board.
So far 4 bodies have been recovered confirmed that none of them had life jackets. Also military has requested for "criminal investigation"

Being a military flight the route would have been into Syria via Caspian Sea Iran/Iraq. Quite rare for Turkey to allow such overflights unless it is a humanitarian cargo.

This was the route of another Tu-154 from Syria on the 19th December.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/a...-85041#bef9574

the tower-pilot talks in youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3l0e-EcqTQ

some light ? blasts? in the sky where TU were, records from Sochi beach camera-s begin to appear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE2BRieTgr8




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-K52HANHZE

What was in the cargo bay ?
Munitions ?

I vaguely remembered Russian authorities recommended to retire the tu 154M, and found a reference here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150402...e-Tu-154M.html

ATC lasts 30 minutes from engine start to loss of contact so a guesstimate would be he was airborne 10 minutes after start-up. Sochi/Adler is right on coast.
Aircraft goes into sea 1.5 km offshore. Sounds like he was returning to airport and from tone of transmissions, not in urgent trouble. We may not hear much about it, seems this was a military flight, so might not be subject to ICAO reporting rules.

http://savepic.ru/12509789.jpg

(position 4 minutes - area of debris)

It's tough on this day to read about such loss of life in an air disaster. In time we will discover the causes and do our best at prevention.

The loss is even more so to even those of us outside Russia when we also consider the cheering mission the passengers were devoting their time to perform.

That beach camera recording shows what looks like a 1 sec duration bright flash in the left-upper area of the frame. To me, it looks like the perspective would mean that the line of sight is well above the water and possibly in, or beyond, cloud.

Thanks for the translation.

Re the flight path, I don't think that he was returning but he was on the SID BINOL2A, which would pretty much prescribe such a flight track. Even though with the graphic posted before, it would have meant he's turned early at around 7 km rather than 15 NM.

http://s018.radikal.ru/i516/1612/01/184917a6b922.jpg

Something rather abrupt must have happened immediately after the turn. Would be at the point where I'd guess they might have been retracting the flaps.


The Russians did retire the B2 variant I believe from civilian airlines. Obviously not from the Military, which apparently have refurbished and recommissioned some B2 airframes (they also have M's I believe). I was surprised today to hear it was a B2 which crashed today. If I am not mistaken, I read that the plane which went into a severe dutch roll on video in 2011 was one of those which came out of storage and has in the mean time been seen flying. This one came out of storage in 2014 if I understand their coms properly. In terms of hours it was young with 6800 hours. I never saw a reason why they would retire a whole fleet of a well proven airframe like this.

ATC lady reported flight plan using SID BINOL 2A - in skycector:
https://skyvector.com/?ll=43.2291951...0BENLU%20BINOL

She instructed them to call Сочи-Подход (Sochi Approach) after reaching 300m (1000ft) but they never called it. Before take off from RWY24 she gave them also standard info (wind, visibility, squawk, pressure, climb to FL100 etc.). The quality of sound is not good and I am not Russian native so I hardly understood

The flash at beach camera record is interesting, but it is not clear if it is linked to the plane. If yes, it looks like some kind of explosion. But it may be anything else.

If someone blew up these guys, who had different politics from many of us, but were, nonetheless, consummate artists, they deserve a special place in a particularly unpleasant realm.

"Which means that something sudden and expected occurred seven minutes into the flight. So, I cannot blame the crew, and when there is a technical problem, it is seldom so sudden. [...] They have even found a man near the coast who was injured by the falling debris. Which indicates that fragments of the aircraft were scattered as they were coming down, suggesting that the aircraft exploded in the air," the pilot added.

At this early stage - such statements are really meaningless and contribute little to the conversation. Anything could had happened. There were numerous accidents where things unraveled very quickly and suddenly after takeoff and it turned out to be neither a technical problem nor explosion of any sort.

World leaders react to Tu-154 plane crash off Sochi coast
 

TASS: World - World leaders react to Tu-154 plane crash off Sochi coast

As far as others, it's Christmas, and communications offices are short-staffed. More expressions of sympathy will come.