Trump appeal against ridiculous fine looks like a winner

[webfact]

Russia says it won't ground Sukhoi plane despite fatalcrash-landing

By Gleb Stolyarov and Andrew Osborn

 

A view shows a damaged Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet 100 passenger plane after an emergency landing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, Russia May 5, 2019. Picture taken May 5, 2019. City News "Moskva"/Handout via REUTERS

 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia sees no reason to ground its domestically produced Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft despite one of the planes bursting into flames during a crash-landing and killing 41 people, the country's transport minister said on Monday.

 

The crash-landing on Sunday is the latest serious setback for the plane, the first new passenger jet developed in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, and threatens to undermine confidence in an airliner Moscow touts as proof it can produce its own high quality civil passenger aircraft.

 

In a blow to the Russian aviation industry, regional carrier Yamal Airlines, the country's second biggest operator of the Superjet after Aeroflot, said on Monday it was cancelling its planned purchase of 10 of the planes, the TASS news agency reported. It cited high servicing costs, not safety concerns.

 

Investigators have started trying to piece together why the Aeroflot jet, which had been flying from Moscow to the northern Russian city of Murmansk on Sunday, was forced to make an emergency landing and why that landing went so badly wrong.

 

Various versions are being looked into, including technical failure, human error, and bad weather conditions.

 

Asked by reporters at a news conference if the Sukhoi planes should now be grounded pending the outcome of the investigation, Yevgeny Ditrikh, Russia's transport minister, said:

"There are no grounds for that."

 

Television footage from Sunday showed the plane catching fire on the runway at Moscow's Sheremtyevo airport as it made a bumpy emergency landing.

 

The plane had been carrying 73 passengers and five crew members. For a graphic on the trajectory of the doomed flight, click:

 

Ditrikh said the bodies of 41 people killed in the accident had been recovered. Thirty-three passengers and four crew members had survived, he said. Six of the survivors were in a serious condition and receiving treatment. One U.S. citizen was killed in the incident, the U.S. authorities said.

 

The plane, built in Russia's Far East in August 2017, had been serviced as recently as April this year.

 

Aeroflot has long shaken off its troubled post-Soviet safety record and now has one of the world's most modern fleets on international routes where it relies mostly on Boeing and Airbus aircraft.

 

However Aeroflot also owns at least 50 Superjets which it operates on both domestic and international routes and has pledged to buy 100 more.

 

The Superjet, which first entered service in 2011, has been hit by sporadic concerns over safety and reliability, including a December 2016 grounding after a defect was discovered in an aircraft's tail section.

 

Interjet Airlines, a Mexican low-cost airline, said in a statement on Sunday it also operated five Superjets "under the highest safety standards." It pledged to follow the Russian investigation into the disaster closely.

 

A Sukhoi Superjet crashed in Indonesia in 2012, killing all 45 people on board in an accident blamed on human error.

 

After Sunday's accident in Moscow, an online petition was launched demanding that the Russian authorities ban the Superjet. It had been signed by more than 50,000 people by 6.30 p.m. (1530 GMT) on Monday.

 

(Additional reporting by Polina Devitt; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Christian Lowe and Hugh Lawson)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-05-07

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[Proboscis]

Not being an expert or anything like that it is easy to find out through Google that lightening strike of aircraft is rather frequent (average once per year) but that modern aircraft are protected by allowing the electricity to surge through the aluminium shell and exit at some point into the atmosphere.

 

Several questions arise - why did this lightening strike not behave the way it should?

Second question - planes are supposed to avoid lightening storms. Why did this one not do so?

 

Give that the strike knocked out much of the electrical controls, why did the plane come in so fast? It would appear that the fire did not start until the plane did its attempted touch-down. Coming in so fast caused the plane to bounce and may have been a contributing cause of the tanks rupturing with the hot air still coming from the jets could have ignited the fuel. Was it so bad that they did not know the speed because of the electrical outage? Were they not able to control the engine thrust?

[Srikcir]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Russia sees no reason to ground its domestically produced Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft

Reminds me of Russian proverb: Ride slower – you will get further.

Take the train or bus next time in Russia if offered a flight on the Superjet 100.

[Mavideol]

if they ground the planes they will look like losers and same level as boeing, Vlad will not want that, russian aircraft better than anybody else's planes, couple hundred deaths not a big deal for him

[losworld]

Looks more like the plane caught fire when it landed maybe a landing gear failure rupturing fuel lines?

[Mavideol]

1 minute ago, losworld said:

Looks more like the plane caught fire when it landed maybe a landing gear failure rupturing fuel lines?

russians called it lightning....

[tifino]

2 minutes ago, losworld said:

Looks more like the plane caught fire when it landed maybe a landing gear failure rupturing fuel lines?

 

 

well as  @Proboscis brought out into the open, the Lightning strike...

 

the plane (engine) was already on fire whilst still airborne

 

 

[madmen]

The 41 stuck in the back burned alive while those up front slow it all down retrieving their luggage

Edited May 7, 2019 by madmen

[tifino]

3 minutes ago, madmen said:

The 41 stuck in the back burned alive while those up front slow it all down retrieving their luggage

we that's the very main subject of the impending investigation

And thenideo there's the showing that ruskie. complete with all his backpack full of irreplaceable Volga parts; look pretty calm and uncaring for all the turmoil left in his wake...

[sammieuk1]

Looks like that one has been grounded literally! wonder if they tried to dump the fuel before the ill fated landing if not it was probably far to heavy for the balsa landing gear???? 

[tifino]

29 minutes ago, sammieuk1 said:

Looks like that one has been grounded literally! wonder if they tried to dump the fuel before the ill fated landing if not it was probably far to heavy for the balsa landing gear???? 

 

 now we know what the fireworks display is like; when one does a midair fuel dump, in the midst of a lightning storm

 

(lightning can strike twice)

 

 

like a lit match versus a 44 gallon drum of fuel!

[OneEyedPie]

I'm always looking out for cheap flight deals to LOS but no matter how cheap Aeroflot come up I ain't flying on their airplanes, fools.  

[madmen]

Bangkok to Moscow doesn't even serve alcohol but probably because those ruskies like to down a bottle  of vodka or 2 when flying

[OneEyedPie]

Just now, madmen said:

... those ruskies like to down a bottle  of vodka or 2 when flying

Now you know why.

[tifino]

 

flown 9 times out of 10 Aeroflot... no probem!

 

[OneEyedPie]

16 minutes ago, tifino said:

flown 9 times out of 10 Aeroflot... no probem!

That you're here on TV posting is always a good sign that you arrived safely.

 

I still won't patronise any Russian airline as we know their safety record speaks for itself.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2019 by OneEyedPie