Posted on 05/09/2012 6:00:04 AM PDT by Perdogg
A state-of-the-art Russian Superjet has vanished from radar screens in Indonesia amid speculation it has crashed or been hijacked with 36 foreign nationals on board.
A major air search has begun but darkness has prevented any hope of spotting the jet - if it has crashed - in mountainous country near Jakarta.
On board the Sukhoi Superjet-100 were eight Russians and 36 foreign nationals.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
What’s the deal with the Russkies and ‘airplanes’ as of late? Creepy.
WTF? Did the "Super Jet" designers forget to put in a gas gauge?
ML/NJ
When Ivan fails he fails big.
Possibly, mass suicide-by-plane.
Russian government officials do seem to have a rash of strange suicides.
Obvious question: How tall are those mountain peaks?
2900 miles will take you a long way ~ but I'd bet a sudden puff from a volcano too out this plane.
I don’t know much about Russian aviation, but it sounds like this plane performed flawlessly, Comrades.
I celebrate the Russian peoples for creating the first successful stealth commuter air bus!
/sarc....
Who built the engines?
Every time there's a big earthquake offshore the eruption schedules of the volcanos changes.
Smart guys don't fly directly over the plume areas at night.
The Muzzies screw with Mad Vlad Putin at their own peril.
Perhaps we lack any leaders who are willing to nuke Mecca, but that is not true of the Russkies and the ChiComs.
That’s a great picture showing all the systems, and their representative consultants and sub-contractors. There seems to be one system missing from the diagram, though. I’m referring to the hardening of the cockpit wall between cockpit and zoo...er... I mean, passenger area.
Thanks for the graphic. Just look at the number of Russian, Chinese, Cuban and NORK suppliers of components in the aircraft! What exactly does Sukhoi make in this aircraft?
Well there you have it. Maybe they should start.
“as of late?”
Huh? Russian flying junk has falling out of the sky since after WWII. Not a year goes by that some Russian passenger plane doesn’t crash.
I think the Russians & the Soviets before them have a really serious quality control problem.
I think the Russians & the Soviets before them have a really serious quality control problem.
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So true. Chernobyl comes to mind as well.
What number of Super Sukhoi SuicideJet 100’s have entered service? How many units have been sold to date tet68? How many more airplanes can we expect to crash? I vaguely remember the UK’s Comet, which lost it’s wings shortly after taking off on it’s maiden flight. That pretty much ruined the commercial future for the Comet. However, the UK military and NATO took a strengthened Comet into the 21st Century before it was retired as a submarine hunter and AWAKS platform.
Probably caused by the many empty vodka bottles rattling around in the fuselage voids.
What was the weather like at the time of the crash?
We had a good friend (of my son, actually, they grew up together) who crashed near Bogor. A sudden rainstorm came up and a downdraft smashed the plane into the side of a mountain.
So you don’t believe the “they ran out of gas” theory either?
Funny. Just this week a friend of mine was telling me about how he ran out of gas in his Miata while his gauge said he still had plenty of gas. I told him I never entirely trusted the gas gauges in my cars, and that every time I fill up, I reset one of my trip odometers to zero as a way of cross checking. I guess it comes from pilot training. I don't think I even ever looked at the gas gauges. You looked into the tanks before you took off and from that you could tell based upon the type of plane how many hours you could fly. Usually you had more than one tank, and you would switch tanks before any actually ran dry.
ML/NJ
Then there's the story of the 767 known as the Gimli Glider...
Wiki: "...its SaM-146 engines are designed and produced by the French-Russian PowerJet joint venture..."
A 98 seater dubbed the “Superjet” was probably doomed from the start.
The FAA requires that aircraft fuel gauges be accurate only when the tanks are full and when they are empty. Totalizing fuel rate gauges work better.
Pilot to co-pilot (tilting head): “What’s a mountain goat doing way up here in the clouds?”
(Seriously though - I hope for the best...at least survivors)
I was looking at a Russian web site few months ago and Russians were saying that the Sukhoi Superjet-100 was junk ,it’s just thrown together
Moral of the story: Buy American!
I do that, and I'm not even a pilot. I never trust a gauge that does not change readings with vehicle speed and/or engine RPM.
For instance, my car has an oil pressure gauge. The needle never moves while the engine is on. Why would I trust that?
It's funny how the Russian people always seem to 'get' the truth - while Russian leaders feel they can get away with lies... Very strange culture.
I’m guessing it met the same mysterious fate as the one carrying the polish president a while ago.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2755598/posts
The real question: Who was on board that had to be eliminated and what did they know?
If it moved a lot I would take the car to be checked over, as something big is wrong.
The plane took off at 2:00 pm (0700 GMT) from east
Jakarta's Halim Perdanakusuma airport, which is used for some commercial and military flights.
"At 2:50 pm it dropped from 10,000 feet (3,048 metres) to 6,000 feet," the rescue agency said in a text message to AFP.
A national park in the region encompasses a peak that is 1,929 metres (6,329 feet) high.
I had a similar experience. Was at a gas station to fill up. I walked inside to pay while dad waited for the pump to stop.
It clicked off at 5 gallons. Dad assumed it was full. Inside, i swiped my card without looking. We drove off and i noticed the guage didn’t rise up to “full”. But the day before a fuse had blown and i lost half the dash lights. So i assumed the guage was broken too and ignored it.
Knowing i had a full tank, we drove on. About 80 miles down the road we ran dry. Even then, it took a few minutes to understand that i was out of gas and not just broken down.
I had flown about 10 years before in cessnas,,and remembered about physically checking the tanks during preflight. It was an eerie feeling to get an understanding of how GA pilots run dry sometimes. That preflight is real,,and nobody should skimp on it.
As to the Suhkoi 100, it’s supposed to be a good machine Nearly all of the Russian frequent accidents are laid at the feet of training, flaunting safe habits, and poor infrastructure, and lots of bad weather. Their planes are fine,,and if were operated here, by pilots from Southwest Airlines, would be solid performers.
2900 miles will take you a long way
Actually is says 2900 km that would be closer to 1800 miles
Still not bad range
it looks like a 737
No indication of what company supplied the engines (GE, Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney?). If they are the one part the Russians themselves provided it may pin point the source of the “problem”.
The plane was flying over Mount Salak, a volcano south of Jakarta, and was presumed to have crashed.
Two helicopters were immediately sent out to search for the plane but had to return to their bases due to strong winds and unpredictable weather.
So, where was this plane, what was the weather like, and is there an active volcano UNDER the flight path.
There's the answer.
They had modern quality control there ~ but elsewhere it was a good question. The most expensive fighters were built and outfitted there ~ as were any of the passenger planes party big wigs would fly.
So, maybe we need to know where they stick the parts on this thing!
The plane began making its descent for landing but vanished from radar screens at 6,200 feet in a mountainous area.
The plane was flying over Mount Salak, a volcano south of Jakarta, and was presumed to have crashed.
The Salak mountain, where the plane disappeared, is more than 7,200.
I’ll go with ‘pilot error’
Sounds like the old “Say, what’s a mountain goat doing up here in a cloud bank”? situation.
I think the pilot’s final words were, “Hey, what’s a mountain goat doing on a cloud bank?”
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