Boeing airliner crashes in Russian city of Kazan, 50 killed

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

MOSCOW Sun Nov 17, 2013 11:27am EST

(Reuters) - A Boeing 737 crashed on landing in the Russian city of Kazan on Sunday, killing all 50 people on board, the Emergencies Ministry said.

The flight from Moscow made a second attempt at landing and exploded on impact, killing all 44 passengers and six crew on board. The flight was operated by the regional Tatarstan airline, a ministry spokeswoman said.

(Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Alison Williams)


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/17/us-russia-crash-idUSBRE9AG0A820131117

[jakeXT]

1. pilot error ?

An emergency services source told Interfax that the pilots made a mistake when entering the second lap, causing the plane to crash. However, the source added that there is a possibility that it was a technical failure.

The Federal Air Transport Agency, on its behalf, said the plane attempted to land three times before crashing.

http://rt.com/news/passenger-plane-crash-kazan-866/

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. 'Pilot error' doesn't seem like an explanation when they had tried and backed off already

That indicates there was some special situation.

[Major Nikon]

8. It could be if they should have gone somewhere else

Multiple landing attempts are usually the result of bad weather, but according to the OP someone on the ground was reporting excellent visibility. If I were to speculate it could be bad wind conditions or something with the plane.

[ewagner]

2. First questions that come to me:

How old was the 737? How many hours on the airframe? The engines? When was it last inspected and by whom?

I'm not too quick to go the "pilot error" route....although I think I would look at the number of hours "in type" the crew had.

[PatrynXX]

4. well the fact he made a second attempt to land

suggests weather as an issue but who knows

[Blue_Tires]

22. Boeing 737-53A

First flew in June 1990...

(of course the age of the aircraft doesn't tell us as much as the actual hours flown and number of pressurization cycles...)

[Beacool]

5. I'm sorry to hear.

May they all rest in peace.

[RexDart]

6. The weather was not good.

Metar at crash time taken from http://avherald.com/ and run through a metar converter I found at a different website.

Latest weather
Observation time Sunday, November 17, 2013 3:30 PM UTC
Local time Sunday, November 17, 2013 6:55 PM UTC
Flight conditions Instrument Meteorological Conditions
Winds
Wind direction Southwest (230°)
Wind speed 9 mph
Wind gusting to 25 mph
Visibility 3.1 mi.
Present weather RASN
Sky condition
Ceiling 700 ft. overcast
Cloud layer overcast 700 ft.
Temperature 37°F
Dewpoint 37°F
Altimeter 29.32 in.Hg
Precipitation
QF 3:14 AM
Derived measurements
Relative humidity 100%
Wind chill 31°F
Density altitude -649 ft.
Remarks
No significant changes expected in the next two hours.
METAR UWKD 171530Z 23008G11MPS 5000 -RASN OVC007 03/03 Q0993 R29/2/0055 NOSIG RMK QFE734/0979

[Trajan]

7. I currently work on production of Head Up Guidance systems

for commercial airliners ... The Boeing 737 is one of our flagship systems ...

The M4000 system is used on most all 737's flown by Southwest, Alaska Air, and American Airlines .... it provides the pilot with guidance cues and symbolic representations of the horizon, and the runway itself, so that, even in the worst weather conditions, the pilot knows exactly where the end of the runway is, and has an 'X marks the spot' target to aim at during landings in poor visibility ...

it should be required equipment ...

RIP ...

[jakeXT]

9. Nothing new, except for experienced pilots and speculation about low-quality fuel

22:55 GMT: Tatarstan Airlines assures that no technical problems were found on the plane before its departure. A spokeswoman for the company told Interfax that the pilots were very experienced.

22:25 GMT: Boeing has issued a statement expressing condolences to the families of the victims of the crash and offering its technical assistance to the investigation.

"Boeing extends its deepest condolences to the families of those who perished in the Aircompany Tatarstan Flight U9-363/2B-363 accident on landing in Kazan, Russia, in route from Moscow. A Boeing technical team will launch to provide technical assistance to the investigation at the request and under the direction of Russia’s investigating authority, the Interstate Aviation Committee."

22:16 GMT: The bodies of 10 victims had been identified as of 21:00 GMT, medical sources told Interfax news agency.

22:11 GMT: One of the reasons behind the crash could have been low-quality fuel, the Investigative Committee believes. “We ordered to take samples of the fuel that was used to fill up the aircraft in Moscow,” a senior official told ITAR-TASS.

http://rt.com/news/kazan-crash-live-updates-876/

[tblue37]

10. A friend who spent time in Russia told me that he was astonished the first time

when the plane he was on landed and the passengers all broke out in cheers and applause. He told me it happened more than once when he flew while there.

Apparently a safe landing is uncertain enough in Russia for the passengers to consider it worth cheers and applause when it happens.

This is just hearsay, of course, but my friend is a pretty serious fellow, not generally given to wild stories.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. That happened the very first time I flew (the applause, anyway)

London to Toronto, 1977, CP Air. Possibly the first time my parents had flown too. It surprised us, too - we may not have been regular flyers, but we thought we'd seen enough of it on film to know it didn't happen normally (and no, there was nothing special - it wasn't bad weather or anything). I still can't work out why it happened. Perhaps there were a lot of first time flyers on it (it was a charter flight, I think).

[Major Nikon]

15. This is customary the world over

I've seen it many times in Europe.

[penultimate]

11. Why I never fly in a Boeing aircraft.

[justice1]

13. I would take a Boeing over a Scarebus anyday.

[Blue_Tires]

19. You must not fly *anywhere*, then if you live in the U.S.

[penultimate]

23. heh... I didn't actually mean what I said..

I just found the headline weird. It's almost like the writers were trying to make that point about it.

[jmowreader]

14. The brand of plane being in the headline is a bit strange

I don't want to pull a Catkiller Frist here, but if the pilot did a go-around and crashed on his second attempt, and the weather was terrible at the arrival airport anyway, could a microburst have been the cause?

[Bosonic]

16. Video reveals near vertical crash

Odd.

[AtheistCrusader]

17. Holy shit

no chance at all...

[Buddha_of_Wisdom]

18. What is that phenemonon called when you can't pull out no matter what you do after being vertical

Death spiral?

or something like that?

[AtheistCrusader]

21. Depends on the cause. In some cases, it's called 'shock stall'.

[Blue_Tires]

20. other discussion:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5923287/
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/527997-russian-b737-crash-kazan-4.html

[jakeXT]

24. Kazan plane stalled after losing speed, flight records show

The plane that crashed in Russia on Sunday rapidly lost speed and as it was attempting a second landing at Kazan airport, preliminary analysis of the flight recorder has shown. The plane then nosedived to the ground, killing all 50 people on board.

Forensic analysis indicates a technical failure as the likely cause of the deadly incident, Interfax reported, citing a source familiar with the investigation. “Not everything went smoothly. There were technical difficulties minutes before the crash, just before the second landing attempt,” the source said.

The source said that the results are preliminary and would not comment on the nature of the problems. He said, however, that apparently the plane lost much of its speed and stalled, which explained the nosedive seen on video footage taken by security cameras on the ground.

The data was recovered from the parametric flight recorder discovered at the crash site.

The probe is complicated by the absence of the recording capsule from the voice flight recorder, which apparently was destroyed when the powerful impact and explosion damaged the device. There is hope that the tape may be found among the fragments of the aircraft scattered across the airfield, rather than being obliterated.

http://rt.com/news/kazan-crash-flight-recorders-950/