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Category: <span>Sukhoi</span>

Ukrainian Warplane Shot Down Near the MH17 Crash Site

Ukraine FlagA Ukrainian fighter jet crashed after it was shot down near the crash site of MH17, in Eastern Ukraine, on August 7.

The incident happened when the Sukhoi warplane was flying low over the rebel-held area, near Donetsk, some 40 km west of the site where the Malaysian Airline flight MH17 crashed on July 17.

The aircraft exploded midair before it crashed into the ground; however, the witnesses reported that the pilot managed to parachute out.

Spokesperson of Ukrainian military Vladislav Seleznyov, confirmed that rebels had shot down a fighter jet and said that “the pilot managed to steer the craft away from a residential area.” He also said that a search and rescue operation is being carried out for the pilot.

Russian Sukhoi Superjet Makes Emergency Moscow Airport Landing


On March 7, 2013, an Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet registration #RA-89009 was en route from Moskow to Nizhny Novgorod when the landing gear failed. The gear doors failed to close.

Pilots returned to Moscow, and maintained a holding pattern till they landed at 16:52. Pilots made a safe landing at Sheremetyevo Airport.

No injuries to the 84 aboard (77 passengers, 7 crew) were reported.

The Sukhoi Superjet has also suffered engine failures. Less than a month ago, Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency suspended flights of four of the 10 aircraft Sukhoi Superjet due to failures in the system of the chassis and wings.

Video Below

Military Training Crash in Yemen, 18 injured, 12 fatalities


During a training exercise, a Yemeni military fighter jet crashed in Sana’a, Yemen, killing the pilot—although one report says the pilot ejected. Witnesses hearing a loud explosion on impact, and report black smoke. The pilot was named as Mohamed Shaker. In addition to the pilot, there were 12 fatalities and 18 injuries.

The pilot was returning to base after a training mission and requested authorization to land when the aircraft lost altitude and crashed.

The plane was a Russian SU-22 that struck three buildings in al-Qadissiya near Change Square. It struck a building on Rabat Avenue, then hit another and ended up on a third building. Several cars were on fire. Five bodies that were recovered were burned beyond recognition.

All of the victims were civilians and included three women and two children. Several ambulances responded. Some reports said they took a long time to arrive.

An investigation is underway.

Raw Video


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Sukhoi plane crash Caused by Pilot Error

The National Commission on Safety Transportation announced that the Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 that crashed into a mountain in Indonesia seven months did so as a result of pilot error. All 45 Aboard were fatalities.

Indonesian authorities claimed that the plane functioned adequately and there were no malfunctions of safety gear.

The fact that the pilot digressed from the route, and that the (foreign) pilots were not well aware of the mountainous terrain may be behind part of the decision. As a demonstration flight, the pilots were probably encouraged to make dramatic maneuvers at a terrible price.

Thirty-eight seconds prior to the impact, cockpit instruments issued a warning saying “pull up, terrain ahead”. Later the warning “avoid terrain” was issued six times, but the instruments were turned off because the crew assumed there was a problem with the database.

Officials said that “The crew was not aware of the mountainous area surrounding the flight path,”

The Jakarta radar service was incapable of informing flight crews of minimum safe altitudes.

The Russian pilots, while experts, were not intimate with the Indonesian topography.
Six minutes after takeoff, the pilot and co-pilot requested Jakarta ATC for permission to drop from 3,000 meters to 1,800 meters on the scheduled half-hour flight. Six minutes later, the plane struck Mount Salak.

READ MORE:

Sukhoi SuperJet-100 Demo Disaster Final Report In October

Russian Pilots Bail out of Sukhoi Jet

The Investigation of Sukhoi Superjet’s Crash holds Answers to Many Questions

Black Boxes Located and in Indonesian Custody

Continuing Search for Sukhoi Superjet Wreckage Indicates Probable Black Box Location Buried Under Debris

Joy Flight Steals Joy

Superjet Wreckage Found

Sukhoi-Superjet Goes Missing on Demo Flight over Indonesian Mountains


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Sukhoi SuperJet-100 Demo Disaster Final Report In October

On May 9, the Sukhoi SuperJet-100 piloted by Alexander Yablontsev was making a demo flight in Indonesia when the pilot took it dangerously close to terrain, and flew south into the mountains instead of turning north to the airport, crashing the plane and killing all 45 aboard the plane. The Russian Trade and Industry Ministry accepted the findings of local experts which blamed the crash on human error. Pilots ignored the collision avoidance system’s warning.

The investigation is not officially over. The French and US reports are part of the investigation. The NTSB Preliminary report is brief:

On May 9, 2012, at 1450 local time, a Sukhoi SJ100-95, Russian registration RP97004, collided with terrain about 35 miles south of Jakarta, Indonesia. The airplane was on a demonstration flight. The 40 passengers and 4 crew were fatally injured, and the airplane was destroyed.

This investigation is being conducted by the National Transportation Safety Committee of Indonesia (NTSC/KNKT). As the state of design and manufacture of the the ACSS/L3 Terrain Warning and Traffic Collision Avoidance System (T2CAS), the NTSB appointed a U.S. accredited representative upon being invited to do so by the NTSC.

Russian officials expect to make the final report public in October.


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Russian Pilots Bail out of Sukhoi Jet

What: Sukhoi Su-27UB (“Flanker-C”) 2nd Air Group, 7000th Airbase, Russian Air Force
Where: Besovets, Prionezhsky district, Karelia Republic, Russia
When: June 28, 2012
Who: 2 aboard, 0 fatalities
Why: Col. E. Oleynik and Major general K. Botashov, ejected from a Sukhoi jet before it went down in Besovets village. The air force suspended Sukhoi flights pending investigation. It is not known if the engine ingested a bird or if a flight control system failed.

The jet had been on a routine weather check and training flight.

The Investigation of Sukhoi Superjet’s Crash holds Answers to Many Questions


Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Egor Naumenko

Today I read an article saying that the SuperJet that crashed on a promotional flight boils down to one question: pilot or plane? I have to disagree. It is not that simple. It takes a lot of coordinating systems to get a plane in the air, and it usually takes more than one error to take a plane down.

If there is a problem with the plane, it is most likely the investigation will reveal it, and anything that comes out before the investigation is just speculation. (How much of the investigation will be made public often depends on the transparency policies of government, however.) So I am speculating here.

Russian Aviation does have a lot riding on the success of this entry into the global aviation marketplace so we know it’s not a paper airplane they folded together in ten seconds or as many months. We suspect that the quality of the teams performing the design, construction, training and troubleshooting that went into the jet’s creation is about par for contemporary jet design. Which is to say the teams are probably very good. The plane has fly-by-wire technology but Sukhoi consults with Boeing on a “step-by-step project management … fully explored and translated into business reality by SCAC.”

There are a number of problems that are coming to light with this flight.

  • Only the cockpit voice recorder was found. The FDR was not found.
  • The Emergency Locator Transmitter (which goes off, like an airbag, on hard impact) did not go off. The Sukhoi only has one(instead of two, which is the norm) Emergency Locator Transmitter which uses 121.5,203 Mhz. Indonesia receivers operate at 121.5,406 MHZ
  • The Terrain map is recorded in the panes database and shows on a display in vertical and horizontal forms. (Did this plane, which was a substitute plane) have an updated terrain map?)
  • The Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System/EGPWS should have gone off with terrain warnings after descending to 6000 feet, and these warnings should be in the black box. Wait…no black box was found.
  • Was this substitute plane compliant with all airworthiness guidelines and laws?
  • Multifunctional Transport Satellites (MTSAT) data revealed that the weather on the Salak Mountain at the time was bad. Cloud and raincover at Salak Mountain was 100 percent.
  • The Halim-Pelabuhan Ratu flight plan was considered safe, but on descent to 6000 feet, the pilot detoured from the flight plan.

Sometimes investigations take the easy path and just blame the pilot. I’ve seen happen a hundred times before, when the pilot was blamed simply because he was not longer able to defend his actions. And while pilots are only human, and sometimes do make mistakes, sometimes those mistakes are caused by corporate pressures, pressure to meet deadlines, fuel quotas, scheduling, etc. What is pressure of corporate expectations on a joy flight pilot? Do we know if he was under orders to showcase the plane’s agility, possibly even to make the very move that crashed the plane?

The pilot, 57 year old Alexander Yablontzev was experienced. He was Sukhoi’s chief test pilot and had spent more than 14 thousand hours flying. After retiring as Lieutenant Colonel from the Russian Air Force, he flew for Transaero and had a lot of hours. But the fatal flight was his first time flying in Indonesia. Did the crash occur because he was flying a strange, possibly wrongly mapped terrain, and recklessly “buzzing” the peak of Mount Salak to show off the plane’s versatility?

No answers here. I’m just saying that the question is not so simply put.

Black Boxes Located and in Indonesian Custody


What: Sukhoi Superjet 100-95 en route from Jakarta to Jakarta Halim Perdanakusuma Airport
Where: Indonesia
When: May 9th 2012
Who: 36 passengers, 6 crew and 2 Sukhoi official
Why: A report has been issued that the cockpit voice recorder was located Tuesday around 330 feet from the Sukhoi’s severed tail. The charred CVR may or may not have been damaged. Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee is leading the investigation and has custody of the box. 70 Russian experts are assisting.

Chief Tatang Kurniadi said, “We have an advanced laboratory in Gambir to examine the black box.”

Retrieval of victims remains continues. Most have been flown to Jakarta in body bags for DNA identification. More body bags will be flown to Jakarta
before the recovery mission can be concluded.

The Indonesian government announced they would pay Rp 50 million (US$5,400) in compensation to each of the families of the crash victims. Funds will be provided by the state-owned insurance company PT Jasa Raharja.

Government compensation is separate from the compensation from Russia-based Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association. The company has agreed to pay US$50,000 in compensation to each of the victims’ families.

An identification team is using fingerprint identification, forensic pathology, forensic anthropology, forensic odontology and DNA to attempt to identify the 28 remains recovered so far.


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Continuing Search for Sukhoi Superjet Wreckage Indicates Probable Black Box Location Buried Under Debris

What: Sukhoi Superjet 100-95 en route from Jakarta to Jakarta Halim Perdanakusuma Airport
Where: Indonesia
When: May 9th 2012
Who: 36 passengers, 6 crew and 2 Sukhoi official
Why: Indonesian special police found the engines, running gear of the SSJ-100, and located (but have not retrieved) the black boxes. The Sukhoi cockpit design is similar to Airbus, with fly by wire technology and a “joystick.”

The Flight Data recorder is believed to be at a depth of 500 meters under rock and debris on the rockface, making the recovery tricky.

No answers have been found why the pilots requested to descend to 6,000 feet from an altitude of 10,000 feet, while flying above a 6000+ mountain in heavy cloud cover. The pilot was an experienced pilot but had not flown in this area and may not have been intimately familiar with the topography. Was he planning on buzzing the peaks, or was the plane in trouble? The black boxes will contain the answer.


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Joy Flight Steals Joy

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.

Superjet Wreckage Found

What: Sukhoi Superjet 100-95 en route from Jakarta to Jakarta Halim Perdanakusuma Airport
Where: Indonesia
When: May 9th 2012
Who: 36 passengers, 6 crew and 2 Sukhoi official
Why: A rescue helicopter found the wreckage a vertical wall of rock, scattered debris on the cliff surrounded by forest.

Read More

Sukhoi-Superjet Goes Missing on Demo Flight over Indonesian Mountains


Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Sergey Kustov


Update:

  • A team of around 200 police, military and rescue workers are headed in vehicles and on foot towards Salak mountain where the plane went missing.
  • A passenger list of 36 names posted at Halim airport showed that most of the people on board were Indonesian airline and aviation representatives, as well as five journalists and a representative of French aircraft engine maker SNECMA.



Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Egor Naumenko

What: Sukhoi Superjet 100-95 en route from Jakarta to Jakarta Halim Perdanakusuma Airport
Where: Indonesia
When: May 9th 2012
Who: 36 passengers, 6 crew and 2 Sukhoi official
Why: The Sukhoi Sukhoi Superjet was thirty minutes into a demo flight over Jakarta when it disappeared from radio contact. It had already flown to Myanmar, Pakistan and Kazakhstan. After Jakarta, it was supposed to visit Laos and Vietnam.

The flight has not been reported landing at any airport. According to an individual who was supposed to be on the flight, it was only to last thirty minutes, and would have run out of fuel by now, if it had been flying all this time.

At 15:30L the crew asked ATC to descend to 6000 feet in an area where there is a 6,200 foot-high mountain. The plane lost contact on a descending right turn and has been reported as missing.

No crash site has been located; it may have crashed into Mount Salak.

The plane was flown by plane was operated by senior test-pilot Aleksandr Yablontsev and co-pilot Aleksandr Kochetkov, and there were six other russians aboard, Aero navigator Oleg Shvetsov, flight engineer Aleksey Kirkin, leading test flight engineer Dennis Rakhmanov, test flight deputy head Nikolay Martyshenko, “Sukhoi” company Sales Director Evgeny Grebenshchikov, and contract manager Kristina Kurzhukova.

Hijacking is unlikely, and appears to be a media rumor.

In George’s Point of View


Along with the rest of the world, we are hoping and praying the plane will be found intact.

One helicopter was sent out on a search mission, according to a local twitter. (See video below.)

Passenger Manifest

1. Kornel M. Sihombing (DI),
2. Edie Satiyo (Pelita Air),
3. Darwin Pelawi (Pelita Air),
4. Gatot Purwoko (Airfast),
5. Budi Rizal (Putra Arta Dirgantara),
6. Syafrudin (Carpedrem Mardin),
7. Peter Adler (Sriwijaya),
8. Herman Suladji (Air Maleo),
9. Donardi Rahman (Aviastar),
10. Eloni (Kartika),
11. Hurdiana Widjanda (Kartika),
12. Arief Wahyudi (TR),
13. Nam Tran (Snecma),
14. Ruli Dermawan (Indo Asia),
15. Ahmad Fazal (Indo Asia),
16. Insan Kamil (Indo Asia),
17. Edward Edo (Indo Asia),
18. Ismie (Trans TV),
19. Aditya Sukardi (Trans TV),
20. Indra Halim (PT KAI),
21. Rietyan S. (PT KAI),
22. Dody Aviantara (Angkasa),
23. Don Yusuf (Angkasa),
24. Femi (Bloomberg),
25. Stephen Kamaci (Indo Asia),
26. Capt. Aan (Kartika),
27. Yusuf Ariwibowo (Sky),
28. Maria Marcella (Sky),
29. Henny Stevani (Sky),
30. Mai Syarah (Sky),
31. Dewi Mutiara (Sky),
32. Sussana Vamella (Sky),
33. Nur Ilmawati (Sky),
34. Rossy Withan (Sky),
35. Anggi (Sky),
36. Aditya (Sky).


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Sukhoi Superjet Turns Back with Known NoseGear Door Problem


Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Valeriy Fedorov

What: Aeroflot Sukhoi Superjet 100 en route from Moscow to Astrakhan
Where: Moscow
When: Mar 16th 2012
Who: 65 passengers and 4 crew
Why: After takeoff, the nose gear door did not close.

After a flyby that confirmed the problem, the flight returned to Sheremetyevo Airport and made a safe landing.

After landing, examination confirmed that the door was broken. The issue with the door involves “a known problem” “a design flaw.”


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Bird Strike/Jet Collision at Airshow Leaves 2 Pilots Dead

What: 2 Belarusian Sukhoi Su-27
Where: air show in Poland
When: Sunday August 31
Who: Two pilots
Why: During an air show in Poland, two jets collided. Neither pilot had the time to eject; so far the remains of only one have been found. The cause has been attributed to a bird flying into the engine of one of the jets

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