Before the Sukhoi Superjet smashed into a ledge on Wednesday, killing 45 people and raining debris down the slopes of Mount Salak, I had never heard the term “joy flight.”
The “joy flight” is the airline equivalent of you going down to the Ferrari dealership and taking a test drive. Or it would be if you were being driven in the Ferrari for fifty minutes or so, in a party atmosphere courted along with a bunch of other potential buyers.
The “joy flight” is a selling tool for the manufacturer. They host this ride for potential buyers to show off the features and quality/qualities of a new plane they are trying to sell.
Until the black box is recovered (we hope one was on the plane!), we won’t have any idea if the pilots had been asked to “buzz” the mountain, or if their request to fly low was a response to the heavy cloud cover. United Aircraft Corporation which built the Superjet says that pilot Alexander Yablontsev (who had logged 10,000 hours in Sukhoi prototypes) was their best test pilot, and had overseen “everything from the designing of the aircraft to its certification.”
Buzzing mountains renowned as an airline graveyard would not be the smartest thing to do, but everyone does wonder why the pilots requested to lower their altitude right over Mount Salak. Family members are already protesting the hazardous route that had been planned for the demonstration flight.
There were 35 Indonesians, 8 Russian crew members, 1 French and 1 American.
The American, Peter Adler was a consultant for Sriwijaya Air, a domestic Indonesian carrier. Adler had been born in São Paulo, Brazil to Auschwitz survivors, grew up in Los Angeles and leaves behind a wife Randi, and family.
Joy flight is a cruelly ironic term. In catastrophic loss of life cases, loss of joy can be considered part of the damages, as families inevitably remain haunted by the loss of their loved ones.
We offer our condolences, but we know how insufficient that is, as relatives are only beginning the harsh journey of grief that begins with shock and a sense of immeasurable loss.
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Two aircraft nearly crashed into each other earlier Thursday at Washington D.C.’s Reagan National Airport.
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Boeing, with its airplane-making reputation in tatters, has revealed plans to get into the flying car market in Asia.
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Lawmakers said it was a “horrifying example” of the effects of undermining slot and perimeter rules, calling the airport’s runway “overburdened.”
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But he notes a more defensive tone coming from the under-fire aviation manufacturer.
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GREEN LAKE COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A plane heading to EAA Airventure last July probably crashed because it ra…
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The Bonanza pilot didn’t follow the published traffic pattern, placing the aircraft close to rising terrain on downwind. He was too fast on final approach, and he went around on the first attempt. A police officer arrived to check on the airplane, as the pilot had reported to ATC that he was low on fuel. Still, he was safely on the ground.
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A NASA pilot is ready for the Pittsburgh Steelers to kick off the 2024 season.
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This deep-sea footage shows inside a sunken passenger plane, once thought to be the wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The wreckage of the MH370, which disappeared without trace while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014, has still never been found. The wreckage filmed by Deep Blue Dive Center, is actually the Lockheed Martin’s L1011 Tristar plane, which was deliberately sunk in 2019 in Jordan. It serves as a home for sea life, but a viral social media post wrongly speculated it was the MH370, which disappeared in 2014.
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The rarely seen footage comes as the company fiercely fights back following a whistleblower’s testimony on Capitol Hill, where a longtime engineer made some alarming allegations.
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Several months after her viral moment, Tiffany Gomas has garnered fresh attention with an eye-catching new post.
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My wife and I are scheduled for an Alaskan cruise in the fall. By all accounts, it’s something to which we should look forward. I’ve been told the same thing about other trips, including a Vegas…
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In the nearly two decades of A380 operations, the superjumbo has never suffered a fatal accident. Why is this and does that make it the world’s safest aircraft?
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Spoiler alert: It’s made possible by this game-changing foot hammock, infinity neck pillow, moldable ear plugs, and more.
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MOBERLY, Mo. (KMIZ) A small plane made an emergency landing just east of Renick, Missouri, on Wednesday afternoon, according to Randolph County Sheriff Aaron Wilson. Wilson told ABC 17 News in a text message that the pilot was not hurt and that deputies took the pilot to a hotel in Columbia. Wilson said the plane
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Alexander Foss, 20, was a junior majoring in aviation flight at Purdue.
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The pilot and his dog were on board the single-engine Piper PA-32 when it crashed off the coast of Rancho Palos Verdes in California.
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