Sukhoi Superjet 100 disappears over Indonesia

[dubjager]

Crazy stuff. I hope the passengers are all right.... Wonder what happened...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/09/world/...html?hpt=hp_t1

[yz1337]

CFIT happened

[20DYNAMITE07]

LOST pic removed now that we know their fate. So sad.

[ATL_Av8r]

Damn. Not good for Sukhoi. Even if it wasn't a mech/structural issue it's gotta affect sales. Russia needs this plane to get back in the commercial game. Gotta think there were some pretty high-rank officials at some of the smaller Indonesian airlines aboard

[GolfTango]

Hoping for the best.

Some great photos of the a/c right before the incident.

http://gallery.me.com/sdolya#102194&...r=black&sel=73

[AZGolf]

CFIT happened

Well at least one article I read indicated they descended to 6000 feet in an area with mountains up to 7200' tall. No Garmin SVT, huh? There's an irony to having access to this technology in kit planes and cheap GA airplanes but not having it on commercial aircraft.



Related: who's responsibility is it to maintain a safe altitude when flying IFR in US airspace? Obviously, the rules could be different there, but if you ask for IFR clearance to, say, FL130 while flying over Aspen, CO, are you going to be cleared to that altitude even if it presents a clear terrain danger? Is it the pilot's responsibility to ask for safe altitudes, or center's responsibility to only grant safe altitudes?

[dubjager]

Related: who's responsibility is it to maintain a safe altitude when flying IFR in US airspace? Obviously, the rules could be different there, but if you ask for IFR clearance to, say, FL130 while flying over Aspen, CO, are you going to be cleared to that altitude even if it presents a clear terrain danger? Is it the pilot's responsibility to ask for safe altitudes, or center's responsibility to only grant safe altitudes?

Good question. I'd love to know to as well

Aren't Indonesian airliners banned from EU and US? Truly a shame... I agree with ATL_Av8r, the russians need to get their act together with this plane!

[OOOO-A3]

Related: who's responsibility is it to maintain a safe altitude when flying IFR in US airspace? Obviously, the rules could be different there, but if you ask for IFR clearance to, say, FL130 while flying over Aspen, CO, are you going to be cleared to that altitude even if it presents a clear terrain danger? Is it the pilot's responsibility to ask for safe altitudes, or center's responsibility to only grant safe altitudes?

The Pilot In Command.

ATC isn't going to clear you for anything below the MEA (minimum enroute altitude) if on an airway, or the OROCA (off-route obstacle clearance altitude) if operating off-airway.

[Gern_Blanston]

ATC isn't going to clear you for anything below the MEA (minimum enroute altitude) if on an airway, or the OROCA (off-route obstacle clearance altitude) if operating off-airway.

Hopefully.

[NZTIGUAN]

Latest from the news here:

The wreckage of a jet which crashed while on a demonstration flight in Indonesia with 48 people on board has been found.

Indonesian search and rescue authorities have confirmed the Russian-made Sukhoi Superjet-100 had been spotted from the air.

The wreckage was found on Thursday morning about 3km from the town of Cicurug, on the side of Mount Salak, a dormant volcano south of the Indonesian capital Jakarta.

There was no sign of survivors.

"The plane has been located on the side of the mountain," military official Ali Umri Lubis said.

"We can only see the body of the plane. We can't confirm the extent of the damage because we have not been able to get close enough."

The jet left from an airport in Jakarta on Wednesday afternoon with 48 people on board, including aviation industry representatives, diplomats and journalists.

Eight of those aboard the plane were Russians, including pilots and technicians, while a French national was also on the flight.

It disappeared from radar about 50 minutes later shortly after descending from 3000 metres to 1800 metres.

Weather conditions were poor in the area around Mount Salak at the time of the crash.

The dormant volcano is known for its bad weather. It's full name - Halimun Salak - translates as "fog" in Sundanese.

Juanda, a villager from Tenjolaya district near Mount Salak, told AFP that he had seen the plane shortly before it crashed.

"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."

"I heard a sound like firecrackers, but I couldn't see it anymore."

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has announced an investigation into the crash, which comes amid an Asian tour to promote the new passenger aircraft.

The twin-engine Superjet is a joint venture between Sukhoi and Italy's Alenia Aeronautica and made its first commercial flight last year.

[J-Tim]

Awful. RIP.

Wonder if close proximity to one of those active volcanoes played a role.

[AZGolf]

Wonder if close proximity to one of those active volcanoes played a role.

Oh... like when the engines shut down after ingesting ash? I guess they'll probably release findings at some point, but ingesting ash and having the engines shut down while flying at night has happened elsewhere over the Pacific in the past if I recall correctly.

[vwnut82]

[QUOTE=AZGolf;77311216]Well at least one article I read indicated they descended to 6000 feet in an area with mountains up to 7200' tall. No Garmin SVT, huh? There's an irony to having access to this technology in kit planes and cheap GA airplanes but not having it on commercial aircraft.

[quote]

Yup even with 5 or 6 MFDs we don't even know what airspace we are in or what roads and bodies of water we are over like you could see on a Garmin 430. But we do have a great EGPWS that screams when you are no where near terrain but says nothing when you are

Related: who's responsibility is it to maintain a safe altitude when flying IFR in US airspace? Obviously, the rules could be different there, but if you ask for IFR clearance to, say, FL130 while flying over Aspen, CO, are you going to be cleared to that altitude even if it presents a clear terrain danger? Is it the pilot's responsibility to ask for safe altitudes, or center's responsibility to only grant safe altitudes?

The rules are different. Just like Mexico. Most of the time you are non radar anyway. But in most other contries, Pilots are treated like gods. They are never wrong so ATC will not question you. If you ask for 4,000 when there is terrain at 7,000 you will get 4,000. Most of the procedures start at cruise altitude anyway. It's your responsibilty to execute the procedure correctly.

[hugoaswho]

That's what happens when you got people with fake engineering degrees building planes.

rip

[joness0154]

That's what happens when you got people with fake engineering degrees building planes.

rip

It would have nothing to do with CFIT, not at all.

[Vision33r]

Get ready for more crashes when the Chinese enters the jetliner business in a few years. They have done a ton of teardowns of American and European jets.

[Jettavr666]

Damn. Not good for Sukhoi. Even if it wasn't a mech/structural issue it's gotta affect sales. Russia needs this plane to get back in the commercial game. Gotta think there were some pretty high-rank officials at some of the smaller Indonesian airlines aboard

RIP to the people on board, but

This is what I was thinking. Airbus had to fight back enough after AF 296, and that crash was attributed to pilot error, and there was only a couple fatalities. Even if it is found to not be a mechanical issue, sukhoi is going to have an uphill battle to make people trust this aircraft. People now expect aircraft to be almost perfect (think 777). Even the AF 296 incident was at a time when air crashes were more expected. Now, its almost unheard of to have a mechanical failure, and pilot errors even in developing countries are more rare.

[J-Tim]

Oh... like when the engines shut down after ingesting ash? I guess they'll probably release findings at some point, but ingesting ash and having the engines shut down while flying at night has happened elsewhere over the Pacific in the past if I recall correctly.

Yes, that was a BA-9 flight to Auckland. Pilots were lucky enough to be able to restart the engines and land the aircraft safely. They couldn't see anything out though because the windshield was scratched by glass-like particles.

Read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9

[NZTIGUAN]

Looks like CFIT, descended from 9000 to 6000 according to last radio call ................ crash is at 6000 ....... looks as if they just flew straight in

[spockcat]

Looks like CFIT, descended from 9000 to 6000 according to last radio call ................ crash is at 6000 ....... looks as if they just flew straight in

You would think that in 2012 someone would have invented a system that would have a complete terrain map of the world on a disk and be able to compare the terrain map with the current position as well as your expected position based on your current flight path. And that type of system would be in a modern commercial aircraft. You would think.

[joness0154]

You would think that in 2012 someone would have invented a system that would have a complete terrain map of the world on a disk and be able to compare the terrain map with the current position as well as your expected position based on your current flight path. And that type of system would be in a modern commercial aircraft. You would think.

See post #13

Synthetic vision, enhanced vision and HITS has been available to GA type aircraft for a few years now. Why it hasn't migrated to transport category aircraft yet is beyond me. It's a huge situational awareness boost.

[FlyinTurbo]

See post #13

Synthetic vision, enhanced vision and HITS has been available to GA type aircraft for a few years now. Why it hasn't migrated to transport category aircraft yet is beyond me. It's a huge situational awareness boost.

Why, you ask? Simple: Money.

The long answer is that the majority of airlines aren't interested in spending more money than what is absolutely necessary to get the job done. Example; one of my previous airlines ordered all of their planes with a single FMS. Rumor has it they tried to get Bombardier to deliver all of their planes with the round gauges instead of the glass that comes standard on the CRJ as a cost saving measure.

[Gern_Blanston]

Why, you ask? Simple: Money.

The long answer is that the majority of airlines aren't interested in spending more money than what is absolutely necessary to get the job done. Example; one of my previous airlines ordered all of their planes with a single FMS. Rumor has it they tried to get Bombardier to deliver all of their planes with the round gauges instead of the glass that comes standard on the CRJ as a cost saving measure.

Wha'??? They're in it for the money?!?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKBRtdp2e98

[joness0154]

Why, you ask? Simple: Money.

The long answer is that the majority of airlines aren't interested in spending more money than what is absolutely necessary to get the job done. Example; one of my previous airlines ordered all of their planes with a single FMS. Rumor has it they tried to get Bombardier to deliver all of their planes with the round gauges instead of the glass that comes standard on the CRJ as a cost saving measure.

I understand that portion, however I don't know of any transport category manufacturer (I know, I know, Gulfstream produces transport category aircraft. I'm talking Boeing, Airbus, etc ) even offering it as an option.

[vwnut82]

Why, you ask? Simple: Money.

The long answer is that the majority of airlines aren't interested in spending more money than what is absolutely necessary to get the job done. Example; one of my previous airlines ordered all of their planes with a single FMS. Rumor has it they tried to get Bombardier to deliver all of their planes with the round gauges instead of the glass that comes standard on the CRJ as a cost saving measure.

At least you had FMS's designed for the aircraft. We have Universal 1Ks in the EMBs that were not designed to mate with our flight guidance controller. The plane will do a 30 degree "clearing turn" before going the right direction, not to mention the numerous RNAV departure deviations we have had due to the unit going into dead reckoning mode without alerting the crew. Recently with all the new RNAV departures and GPS approaches coming into the US, the box has run out of memory. Along with completely removing producedures from the database, Universal has also just removed certain fixes on approaches which makes them unusable.

[vwnut82]

I understand that portion, however I don't know of any transport category manufacturer (I know, I know, Gulfstream produces transport category aircraft. I'm talking Boeing, Airbus, etc ) even offering it as an option.

787 has it.

[.LSinLV.]

A.net is discussing that the TWAS was OFF

[joness0154]

787 has it.

Are you sure? I can't seem to find anything about it. If so, bravo!

A.net is discussing that the TWAS was OFF

Off or disabled? Should the pilot even have the option of turning it off? My inclination would be to say no.

[spockcat]

See post #13

Synthetic vision, enhanced vision and HITS has been available to GA type aircraft for a few years now. Why it hasn't migrated to transport category aircraft yet is beyond me. It's a huge situational awareness boost.

Of course I had read post #13. My comment was to be taken with a large dose of sarcasm. The real meaning of my post would be it's 2012 and these systems have been around for several years now. You would think that an aircraft manufacturer would offer the system as an option and would certainly have it on a demonstrator aircraft.

From the later posts I guess they are and did have it. But either it didn't work correctly or the humans on board thought they were smarter than the computer.

[Gern_Blanston]

Off or disabled? Should the pilot even have the option of turning it off?

Yes. GPWS malfunction or a visual approach into Aspen are 2 examples that come to mind where I was glad I could turn the damned thing off.

[OOOO-A3]

A.net is discussing that the TWAS was OFF

A.net general forum is full of autistic douches obsessed with airline schedule stats and tracking which serial number aircraft are being scrapped this week. The TAWS discussion is based on ONE photo of an overhead panel, when the sukhoi was parked on the ground, that shows an illuminated OFF label on the TAWS switchlight which has been blown up into "omgwtf they crashed because it was turned off!!!"

Off or disabled? Should the pilot even have the option of turning it off? My inclination would be to say no.

Everything can be turned off somehow. I had the TAWS go nuts in the Falcon one day, pulled the breaker and continued. Recently our EGPWS (TAWS) in the Lear wouldn't complete self-check on startup. Wrote it up & turned it off per the Minimum Equipment List procedure, did the charter trip, and got it fixed when we got back.

[.LSinLV.]

A.net general forum is full of autistic douches obsessed with airline schedule stats and tracking which serial number aircraft are being scrapped this week. The TAWS discussion is based on ONE photo of an overhead panel, when the sukhoi was parked on the ground, that shows an illuminated OFF label on the TAWS switchlight which has been blown up into "omgwtf they crashed because it was turned off!!!"



Everything can be turned off somehow. I had the TAWS go nuts in the Falcon one day, pulled the breaker and continued. Recently our EGPWS (TAWS) in the Lear wouldn't complete self-check on startup. Wrote it up & turned it off per the Minimum Equipment List procedure, did the charter trip, and got it fixed when we got back.

depending on the flight, wouldn't the TAWS be on the MEL???

[OOOO-A3]

depending on the flight, wouldn't the TAWS be on the MEL???

MEL is not a list of what must be working, but rather a list of items which MAY be inop for dispatch, and appropriate actions concerning them. Since it was an MEL-able item, it had to be written up on a maintenance form, assigned a maintenance control number, and repaired by the third day after writeup or the aircraft was grounded. For flights in the mean time while inop the Pilot Not Flying had to make verbal callouts of altitudes and descent rates on all instrument approaches, and the radar altimeter could not concurrently be inop. I think there was some other minor stuff but it didn't affect us for that trip.

[OOOO-A3]

[Gern_Blanston]

A.net general forum is full of autistic douches obsessed with airline schedule stats and tracking which serial number aircraft are being scrapped this week.

+1. An awful lot of guys over there drive around with their foglights on when it's not foggy.
TAWS will not save your ass if your head's so far up it that you can't see what's going on.