Crashed Sukhoi Superjet 100 was replacement aircraft

May 16, 2012 | Filed under: world | Posted by:

Moscow, (IANS/RIA Novosti) The Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 that crashed into a mountain in Indonesia, killing 45 people May 9, was a replacement aircraft for one that had been withdrawn due to engine problems shortly before the flight.

A Superjet 100 aircraft with the tail number 95005, which earlier performed demonstration flights in Kazakhstan and Pakistan as part of a six-country tour aimed at wooing potential buyers, was the one originally planned to be shown in Indonesia, the LifeNews TV channel quoted Alexander Tulyakov, deputy president of Russia’s United Aviation Corporation (UAC) as saying.

But an engine oil leak revealed during maintenance May 6 forced the show organisers to replace the plane with another similar jet, with the tail number 95004, Tulyakov said.

This resulted in organisers having just a few hours to prepare the plane for the flight, he said.

A spokesperson for the Sukhoi Corporation, which designed the plane and is part of UAC, confirmed that the plane was replaced, but did not name the reason.

All 45 people on board the Superjet 100 were killed when the plane slammed into a steep side of Mount Salak near Jakarta shortly after take-off on a demonstration flight.

Russia’s acting Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said experts believe “human factor” was the most probable cause of the fatal crash.

UAC head Mikhail Pogosyan said it was premature to say if pilot error was to blame.

A search operation for victims’ bodies continues despite difficult weather and terrain at the site of the crash. Indonesian aviation officials have said the investigation of the crash may take up to a year.

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Posted by on May 16, 2012. Filed under world. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
  • JP CANTE

    I am amazed about the statement that the crew asked permission to drop from 3000m down to 1800 in an area where the plane was. It is not mentioned whether or not the permission was granted which does not seems to me likely as the air control in JKT surely knows this area and would not have granted permission.
    In the aviation industry, we all well know that most crashes are due to human errors. We have seen crashes like this by crews flying a demonstration plane and take quite some risks to impress the potential buyers.
    We have seen that in France with an A300 on which people were invited to participate to a short demo flight. Unfortunately, the airline pilot flying the A300 went under the safety altitude and when he put the power it seems that he forgot that he needed 8 seconds about to get full power from the engines. The plane crashed in a nearby forest!!!.
    Obviously, it is too early to invoke a human error; especially when the black box has been severely damaged. But the circumstances of this crash are troubling and one can not think of something else than a human factor.
    Unfortunately, lots of lives have been lost and we all pray for those who were on board and their families.
    I think that the Indonesian aviation officials are right. It will take a long time to know what happened, if we can know one day.

  • mary

    Questions:

    1.) Would ATC deny the drop to 6000 or just caution an approval with “MSA at xxxx, and Visual Flight Rules apply”? I ask because ATC’s main job is to prevent planes from crashing into each other. If the pilot states he can see things, then ATC may acquiese to the captain’s request. Der Speigel reported Sunday that the pilot asked to drop to 6,000 to get UNDER the afternoon weather. So there were clouds at 10K – how high did the clouds go and did the pilot think they were too high to get over, given the short demo flight path?

    2.) What was the route of the morning demo flight? Same circumfrence around Mt. Salek?

    3.) Replacement aircraft 95004 successfully flew the morning demo – in the clear sky – but when the clouds came and the pilot had to rely on warning instrumentation – it crashed. So was the TAWS deactivated because they dropped to 6K and they did not want to hear WHOOPWHOOP, or would it even have offered enough warning with a sheer cliff? Also, don’t topographic databases have to be uploaded into warning instrumentation – did this replacement plane have the Indonesian ones uploaded?

    Thank you.

  • mary

    The Sukhoi Superjet 100 is an international effort with the same American, Italian, French parts and sophistication we see in modern planes used everyday. My heart breaks for all of the lost souls because the ship is a magnificent one – it will most likely turn out to be a human error. ;(

  • http://epoxygaragefloor.blogspot.com/ Epoxy

    Is the Sukhoi Superjet 100 first crashed?

  • Made

    Sukhoi Superjet 100 fell not because of technical errors, but due to lack of equipment for the flight so that it can not detect the height of Mount Salak.

  • johnysmith