Sukhoi SuperJet dissapears on demo flight, 46 on board

[DieselDragRacer]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...-disappears-during-indonesia-demo-flight.html

 

[pkunzip66]

Looks like there will be a sale on Sukhoi jets soon!

 

[lowtimedriver]

Will secure lots of new orders....Russian Civilian Aviation is a joke.....

RIP to the crew and the PAX's.

 

[scoreboardII]

Lets see if I can decipher, the jet decended to 6000' in terrain which reaches 10,000'.

 

[AKAAB]

The manifest includes a Peter Adler and it is believed he is the former JetBlue Director of Flight Ops that left for the Far East a couple of years ago.

RIP Pete.

 

[hawkerjock]

The Sukhoi Superjet-100 took off from Jakarta's Halim Perdanakusuma Airport at 2:21 p.m. (0721 GMT).
It dropped off the radar 21 minutes later near the Salak mountain range, after the crew asked air traffic control for permission to descend from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet (3,000 meters to 1,800 meters).
No explanation was given for the change of course. Though drizzling at the time, it was not stormy.
"I saw a big plane passing just over my house," Juanda, a villager who lives near the 7,200-foot (2,200-meter) mountain, told local station TVOne.
"It was veering a bit to one side, the engine roaring," she said. "It seemed to be heading toward Salak, but I didn't hear an explosion or anything."

 

[Juniority]

Demonstration pilots are a different breed of cat, in my experience. In spite of the fact that they're supposed to be the "best of the best" I'd rather watch them from the ground than be their passenger.

 

[habubuaza]

http://gallery.mac.com/sdolya#102194&view=grid&bgcolor=black&sel=18

 

[CRJDispatchKid]

http://gallery.mac.com/sdolya#102194&view=grid&bgcolor=black&sel=18

Photo 382 shows the overhead panel with a FAULT / OFF on the TAWS. I wonder if that would be normal on the ground? Or was this an INOP item?

 

[habubuaza]

Yeah, that question was raised on PPRUNE but no one seems to have a logical answer for that. The only reason to turn it off I would guess would be to silence audible terrain warnings while doing some mountain flying at low altitudes above terrain. Not sure, just speculation.

 

[thepotato232]

FAULT would be normal on the ground with the aircraft not ready to fly, but OFF is a selected position, which isn't SOP for any aircraft I've flown in any normal phase of operation. All this is baseless speculation, of course.

http://gallery.me.com/sdolya#102194/20120509_ssjroadshow_382&bgcolor=black

Photo taken by a ride-along blogger, apparently the day of the accident. In light of what's happened, the indication of that TAWS - Terrain switch is creepy as Hell.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/.z...webfeeds/f8c9a0f92e08340d0f0f6a70670043a1.jpg

I am surprised they are looking for survivors. Right into a vertical cliff.

 

[DieselDragRacer]

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/.z...webfeeds/f8c9a0f92e08340d0f0f6a70670043a1.jpg

I am surprised they are looking for survivors. Right into a vertical cliff.

Wow! :erm:

 

[livin'thesim]

At least it was probably over in a second, with little suffering.

 

[Max Powers]

Why is this not overly surprising when russian pilots are involved? May they rip.