No it is not. Back in a previous era I used to do load control on TU5s, I can say with 100% certainty. No Soviet era aircraft had any active fuel trimming system, the first a/c I'm aware of to have had one was the 310-300.

Solid bit of kit..
 

If it's a solid bit if kit then why would it break up in the air ?
It didn't of course !

Well known that very often a catastrophe happens when several negative factors occur together. Here, very likely the TOW was at the limit (this will be known soon), also no visibility at night after passing the shoreline. The crew did not flow for a long time before this second leg (Moscow - Sochi is just some 2+ hrs) but did not sleep the whole night (it was 5+ a.m). The plane reportedly started a prescribed right U-turn (likely intensive with significant roll). If at that moment anything happens (e.g malfunction of one of the engines) it may pose a difficult task to the crew to be solved almost instantly.

I assume to avoid needing to refuel in Syria. Supplies there are probably all shipped from Russia, so it makes no sense for them to upload fuel in Syria when they could stop before leaving Russia to tanker their own fuel.

Several posters above confrmed that the video shows the flare of a lighthouse, NOT anything related to the aircraft.

Same source which peviously suggested FOD in engines now suggests fuel pump failure, so we may probably discount both as pure speculation.

Originally Posted by PilotsResearch
Why would they need to refuel at Mozdok, only 80 minutes or so out of Moscow?

It was only one page back!

— ...Speed 300... (illegibly.)

— (illegibly.)

— Gears up, Cpt*.

— (illegibly.)

— Oh, ****!

(warning sound. stall warning?)

— The flaps, bitch! WTF?!

— Altimeter!

— We... (are finished? illegibly.)

(Ground warning.)

— (illegibly.)

— Cpt, we're falling!

* literally "Gears taken, commander"

So they (FO) pulled the wrong lever and stalled it into the drink is the picture being painted?

This would explain the Russian assertion of pilot error

I wonder where the above script has come from? CVR is yet under the water or just pulled out of it and has not yet decoded by "Lubertsy".

First recorder rescued was a CVR.



0:39

- It's the sound one...
- It's CVR. Mars-BM

CVR

I can well understand popping the cover off, first thing to leak out would be water. But am amazed at the speed with which it seems to have been followed by the transcript.

Indeed--and it uses magnetic tape, not solid state storage.

Yes, the last Winter Olympics were in Sochi. But before you take this as a judge of weather: It was 21C in the park (near Adler airport) in mid-February during the Games.
People were wearing shorts & flip-flops, even at the skiing events in the mountains. That weather was not a freak heatwave: a friend of mine worked there for 7 weeks and it didn't get close to freezing in all that time.

BEA Trident at Staines 1972 ? Not identical but sounds like common aspects.

Kulverstukas,
Are you saying that when the Captain asked for 'gear up' the FO selected the flap up (all the way) instead? :{

The circled right-hand lever is marked шасси (undercarriage)
The circled left-hand lever is marked ЗАКРЫЛКИ (flaps)

The " Careless" has one of the highest power to weight ratios of any civilian aircraft.
They make a 320 feel like a slug hence the high fuel consumption/relative inefficiencies.

It was known for being one of the fastest flying a/c out there, as well as t/o / rotate, being a blast.
I always looked forward to flying one, because it felt like a mad howling dragster.

Just see how they flew Alrosa flight 514 back out of that short disused military a/f in the Taiga, then it was flying again in 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XUgKLIG_5M

The likelihood of it being overweight is about zero here, so the finger surely has to be pointed to some sort of nasty error >stall scenario.

Sadly the historical data for accidents moments after take off, especially over water and in the dark, are almost invariably pilot error - usually somatosogravic illusion or similar.
It all seems eerily similar to so many other "inexplicable" accidents in identical circumstances.