Sukhoi Superjet missing in Indonesia

[3WE]

Needed?
Proper planning.

Required?
Not much. It's a private non-revenue flight. Just the minimum planning that I need to fly the Tomahawk (wich includes the availability of current charts for the zone).
Depending the case, even filling a fligth plan could be not required.

I forget the exact wording but the US FAR's require the pilot to familiarize and equip himself with all reasonable relevant information.

Tee Vee could obviously interpret and shred this many ways, but lacking relevant charts and failing to review minimum altitudes would be scorn worthy from the US FAA.

File a flight plan- nope, not needed, but check the Weight & Balance, Fuel and runway requirements....

[Gabriel]

File a flight plan- nope, not needed, but check the Weight & Balance, Fuel and runway requirements....

i.e.

Just the minimum planning that I need to fly the Tomahawk

[3WE]

i.e.

Right or wrong, I belive that light plane pilots very rarely do the following:

-W&B calculations
-Takeoff length determination
-Calculation of V1, Vr and V2 speeds
-Calculation of stall speed and 1.3 times it- and factoring of gust factor
-Formal weather briefing when it's severe VMC and the TV weatherman says the high is totally in control.
-Review the MSA over their specific area of intended flight

...even though the same FAR rules for flight planning to review every reasonable detail apply to both light planes and big fast shiny jet ones.

I am also conveying that I disagree and would expect a fairly rigorous planning procedure for this flight...

...even though I agree, it could have been VFR / no flight plan for this crash (and that it might not include the exact course flown either).

By the way, I still blame the Murphy's Law Attractive Force.

Peace, Love, Full Power, Maximum Climb Attitude, but remember a stall can happen at any airspeed configuration and attitude- even though nose high, slow, pulling back and a stall warning kind of a good way to stall

[Gabriel]

Right or wrong, I believe that light plane pilots very rarely do the following:

It's a matter of margins:

-W&B calculations:
Two "regular" adults, full fuel, no significant baggage or less and I would not do it. Drop some luggage or an XXL guy and unless there is much less than full fuel I'll do it. That's weight. I've discovered that you cannot put the Tomahawk out of its CG envelope, since all fuel, persons and baggage are so close to the CG (unless maybe if you had max baggage, which never happened to me).

-Takeoff length determination
For ISA SL conditions, it has a zero wind take-off roll of some 350 meters (MTOW, all performances are calculated only for MTOW, so you have margin at a lighter weight). Give me a 600+ meters runway with no significant obstacles in the initial climb and I'll not check it unless its high and hot. I never so far operated high and hot or in less than 600 meters.

-Calculation of V1, Vr and V2 speeds
Even if you wanted, V1 and V2 can't be computed for single engine airplanes as they involve speeds where you can continue your take-off (V1) and climb (V2) safely after an engine fails.
Vr: 60kts (normal) or as soon as it'll unstick (short/soft take-off)
Vx: 62 kts, Vy: 70 kts

-Calculation of stall speed
Stall speed 49 kts (no flaps) / 47 kts (full spoilers... ehm... flaps)
Again published only for MTOW. At lighter weights again you have extra margin as you take the same number.

-and 1.3 times it- and factoring of gust factor
In fact, Vref in the Tomahawk with full flaps is 62 kts, which is 1.3 times Vs. You should then add the gust compensation.
However, unless I am demonstrating a short landing, I approach at 70kts (full flaps or no flaps) plus gust factor if gusts are significant.

-Formal weather briefing when it's severe VMC and the TV weatherman says the high is totally in control.
If I'm flying around the airport or a very short navigation? Nope.

-Review the MSA over their specific area of intended flight
You bet I'd do it if flying over terrain I am not fully familiar with.

You forgot fuel planning.

[3WE]

You forgot fuel planning.

Indeed

Two adults or four, one hour our five, the tanks are topped off.

You demonstrate that you know some V-speeds and takeoff performance for gross weight, sea-level, 70 degree day, low humidity. On airliners, they do them for the specific weight, and atmospheric conditions.

Back to the bottom line- my beer $ is on this flight having a fairly thorough and broad preflight, maybe not some of the items Evan thinks- but still, quite rigorous.

[Gabriel]

Indeed

Two adults or four, one hour our five, the tanks are topped off.

Unless wight was of concern.

[off topic]
That, and, in cold winter days, when flying solo for a 1 hour or so local flight, I liked to have half the fuel.
With half the persons and half the fuel, you have half the useful load.
You can really feel the difference in acceleration, take-off distance, climb rate and deck angle (and that's to hold the "nominal" 70kts based on MTOW, optimal Vy would be slower for a light weight what would mean even faster climb rates and steeper deck angles).
A rocket! (as much as a Piper Tomahawk can be one). These memories make me want to be flying NOW!
[/off topic]

On airliners, they do them for the specific weight, and atmospheric conditions.

I concede that the complexity of what I called "minimum planning" is proportional to the complexity of the airplane.

Back to the bottom line- my beer $ is on this flight having a fairly thorough and broad preflight, maybe not some of the items Evan thinks- but still, quite rigorous.

What I am thinking is that, perhaps, the planning could have not been as thorough as in a commercial flight. Examples:
Fuel: Oh, we are going just to make a quickie. We have far more than enough.
Weather: It's a nice VFR day, it's forecast to stay like that, and we are staying close around the airfield.
Alternates: Come on, it's VFR and will stay so. And just in case this airport has ILS, and there are a couple of other airports in the vicinity. We'll look for them in the charts and ask the ATC in the unlikely event that we need.
FMS: We are not going to program it. We will be flying close to the airport in VFR. navigation will be mostly visual and we could use some raw VOR to find our way back. Flight will be mostly manual and when not, basic autopilot settings will be used (alt hold, heading hold).
Terrain database: Who cares? We will be VMC so we'll have a 100% accurate and updated terrain database out of the windshield.
Charts: Yes, we have it, let's give them a quick look.
Flight briefing: We are taking of from here and returning here. We'll show some spectacular climbs, slow flight, turns, just the usual thing. We'll show all the technology, screens and bright lights. Then we'll return.

Now please hand me those graphs to make a thorough weight and balance and take-off and landing performance calculations.

Something like that might have happened.

[guamainiac]

Wind direction possibly caused drift or downdraft?

Any data on that? Still looks pretty straight in but that would not rule out a down draft though remote ..... as long as it seems like a "punch list" was in the making.

[snydersnapshots]

Wind direction possibly caused drift or downdraft?

Any data on that? Still looks pretty straight in but that would not rule out a down draft though remote ..... as long as it seems like a "punch list" was in the making.

I don't know what the winds aloft were, but I doubt they were high enough at that low an altitude to cause problems. I'm sure they were not strong enough to take the airplane from a safe altitude and put it into a descent that would drop the airplane far enough to run into the mountain, or to prevent it from climbing over the mountain if they were below the summit and tried to climb over. If such was the case, there would be a lot of reports of moderate to severe turbulence from other airplanes.

A microburst would have the power to do something like that, but then, they probably wouldn't be flying through a thunderstorm that strong on a demo flight.

[Evan]

They've recovered the CVR.

Hoping for a quick disclosure...

[Fear_of_Flying]

Probably a number of you saw this article from a few days ago, but I find it to be an interesting summary of the unusual features of this crash and subsequent investigation, so I thought I'd post it, although some of the abnormalities mentioned are simply unknowns at this time:

A number of abnormalities were found in last
week's crash of the Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 on Mount Salak, Bogor, West Java. Below are these:

1. Emergency Locator Transmitter/ELT
ELT which was designed to be activated on hard impact did not function when the plane struck the mountain.

The Sukhoi's ELT, which uses different frequency, was neither listed with local ELT operators such as the national SAR agency. The Sukhoi's ELT uses 121.5,203 Mhz, whereas radio receivers in Indonesia use 121.5,406 Mhz. It also functions only in lowlands, not on mountains. Usually aircraft are fitted with Two ELTs, one in front and the other in the tail. ELT in the tail functions when the plane hits water. However, the Sukhoi has only combined one ELT which also activates life vests if the plane is submerged in water.

2. Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System/EGPWS
This equipment alerts pilots if the plane accidentally goes too close to the ground with the warnings "TOO LOW TERRAIN" or "TOO LOW GEAR" or "TOO LOW FLAPS". The crashed Sukhoi's pilot should have been alerted after he descended to 6.000 feet among the mountains. The black box should have recorded GPWS warnings.

3. Terrain Map
The Terrain map is usually recorded in the plane's database and appears in the navigation display which gives a visual of the land in both vertical and horizontal forms. The terrain database needs to be continuously updated. If the plane is flying in a new area with mountainous terrain, pilot is required to update his database. If he fails to do so, the pilot can be charged with negligence.

4. Weather Radar
Multifunctional Transport Satellites (MTSAT) data revealed that the weather on the Salak Mountain at the time was bad, with the mountain 100 percent covered by clouds and rains. After the pilot asked to descend to 6.000 feet, the plane should have turned left, not right towards Halim. The pilot could have seen the gathering clouds and avoided them by navigating below 10.000 feet with minimum visibility distance of 5 km.

5. Flight plan
The Sukhoi's both flights were scheduled for Halim-Pelabuhan Ratu route, which was considered safe.
The ATC (air traffic control) allowed the pilot to descend to 6.000 feet, but after it made a 360 decree turn, the plane exited from Atang Sanjaya area and lost contact with ATC. In the aviation regulation, the pilot has to ask ATC's permission if he intends to make a detour from the flight plan.

6. Substitute Plane
The Sukhoi used in the joy flight was suspected to be a substitute aircraft. The doomed aircraft bears a serial number 97004, while it should be 97005 as the one used in Pakistan. Trimarga claimed that the plane had been registered with the Transport Ministry early May, but the Ministry's spokesperson Bambang S. Ervan stated otherwise, meaning that the aircraft had not been inspected and tested for airworthiness in line with the law no. 1 of 2009.

7. Black Box
The black box found was incomplete for crash cause investigation. The black box usually consists of flight data recorder (FDC) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR). Officials found only the CVR without the FDR.

I would add to that list that there has been a very unreliable flow of information in the aftermath of this accident. I know that in any investigation there will be false reports, leaks, etc., but in this one, the most basic information, information that would normally be disseminated by a single spokesperson, seems to get lost in translation. First they retrieved the black box, then they had only located it, then they hadn't located it, then they found it again, then it was only part of the black box, and so on. There has been similar unreliable information about what stage they're at with identification of the remains.

Interesting - I would say there are far more unusual circumstances surrounding this accident than the Polish President's plane crash - yet so far no one has proposed an analysis showing that the plane didn't actually fly into the side of the mountain.

[James Bond]

[Fear_of_Flying]

From Jakarta Post (21 hours ago)

Search called off for rest of Sukhoi black box

National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) chief Vice Marshal Daryatmo has announced that the agency has ended the search for the flight-data recorder (FDR) from the Sukhoi Superjet 100 that crashed earlier this month.
“We found nothing significant recently even though we have added three extra days to scour larger areas around the crash site,” Daryatmo told reporters at Cijeruk command post in Bogor, West Java, on Monday.
A Russian team has also ordered their personnel to leave Mt. Salak.
Based on Government Regulation No. 36/2006, the Indonesian rescue team could have stopped the search operation after seven days, but the team had continued their operation.
Daryatmo said that all personnel had been withdrawn from the crash site.

From Bloomberg (15 hours ago)
[

B]Sukhoi Crash Probe Gets Army Support in Hunt for Data Recorder[/B]

Indonesian salvage crews sifting through the wreckage of the Russian Sukhoi SuperJet in the thicket of West Java have enlisted the help of the army and special forces as the hunt continues for the data recorder.
The country had dispatched 600 search and rescue experts to the site following the crash on May 9 that killed all 45 people on board, and the effort is now being handed off to military forces trained in salvaging equipment. Russian support personnel deployed to Indonesia have started winding down their effort, according to the Russian Emergency Ministry.
Search crews are focused on finding the container housing the data recorder that stores systems and engine performance to help determine the cause of the crash. The Sukhoi jet was on a promotional trip through Asia, and the aircraft that crashed had been switched halfway through the tour after an issue on an engine component on a flight from Kazakhstan to Pakistan.
“We haven’t stopped the search,” said Gagah Prakosa, a spokesman at Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency.

This type of contradictory information has been fairly rampant throughout the process. Note we have two different people speaking on behalf of the National Search and Rescue Agency.

[Fear_of_Flying]

According to reports, http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...re-on-recorder, the GPWS was functioning properly at the time of the crash, providing information on the distance to the ground. The implication is that this report is based on preliminary analysis of the CVR. So that temporarily quells some speculation, namely, that the GPWS was not functioning or was turned off. Instead, we have to turn our thoughts to how and why it was unheeded. The article also seems to clarify confusion surrounding the search for the FDR:

The hunt for the digital flight data recorder continues, with special forces now replacing an earlier search team.

[Evan]

According to reports, [URL]So that temporarily quells some speculation, namely, that the GPWS was not functioning or was turned off. Instead, we have to turn our thoughts to how and why it was unheeded.

b-r-a-v-a-d-o ?

[Gabriel]

b-r-a-v-a-d-o ?

What is bravado?
Intentionally aiming at a mountain that is obscured by clouds and rain?