The Red Wings Tupolev jet that crashed on December 29 had three survivors, two men and a woman.
Their conditions are improving.
The five fatalities included the captain, first officer, flight engineer, and two flight attendants. One of the now-deceased flight attendants had survived a while with traumatic brain injury, but succumbed.
Russian investigators have started analysing the flight recorders.
Nose sections of the aircraft have been removed to a hangar used by the VARZ-400 maintenance company
Reports are that the runway was inspected an hour and a half before the flight landed and overrun it. Speculation is that there may have been a braking (thrust reverser) issue.
On Dec 31st 2012 Rosaviatsia released a modification to the aircraft operations manual requiring flight crew to apply reverse thrust only if the engine is operating
Application of reverse thrust is prohibited on a malfunctioning engine.
To apply reverse thrust the engine should be pulled to idle for 1-2 seconds, then command reverse thrust at minimum thrust, verify yellow “thrust reverser unlocked” followed by green “REV” indications appear, only then apply high reverse thrust. Rosaviatsia reported there have been a number of cases where the green “REV” indication did not appear (editorial note: there have been rumours since the Dec 20th overrun, that the crew had applied reverse thrust, the reverser however had not opened and at least one of the engine was delivering full forward thrust instead).
