Why did they turn off the terrain warning system on this flight?
Posted on 05/10/2012 12:40:42 PM PDT by AmonAmarth
Russians are reeling today from a plane crash that seems likely to stall, or even thwart, a revival of its aviation industry, which has been plagued by high-profile disasters in recent years, including one that killed the Polish president and his entire entourage and another that wiped out an entire Russian hockey team.This time it was not an aging Soviet-era plane that crashed, but a Sukhoi SuperJet 100, Russia's newest commercial aircraft upon which the hopes of its aviation industry are riding. With the SuperJet, Sukhoi believes it did everything right, including cooperating with many key foreign firms in the plane's design, construction (about 70 percent of its components are foreign-made) and marketing.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Hey,it could have been the equipment...it could have been the crew...it could have been the weather.If it’s either of the first two you know the Soviets will make sure that the world never finds out!
Anyone on board named Mohammad?
This accident appears to be a classic case of pilot error. Continued VFR flight into IFR conditions in mountainous terrain. Although why they didn’t have a good GPS with terrain avoidance is a head scratcher nowadays. But not an indictment of the aircraft.
The Protestant work ethic completely evades the Russians. They’re too busy bullying and stabbing each other in the back to do any work.
He sure seems to have gone “splat” into the steep side of a volcano. At least, if that was to case, the passengers never knew what was about to happen.
I remember an Airbus A320 at a demo flight crashing into a forest. Didn’t seem to put a permanent black mark on Airbus and the A320s new fly by wire system.
http://gallery.me.com/sdolya#102194/20120509_ssjroadshow_382&bgcolor=black
Photo purportedly of the overhead panel of the plane shortly before the incident flight. There are lots of pics of the plane and the demonstration flights. People sitting in the pilots seats, stewardesses from the different airlines, etc.
It was a celebratory atmosphere.
This photo shows the TAWS terrain warning system manually set to OFF.
How could it happen with all the advanced Italian engineering involved. Chrysler will soon derive the same benefits with the help of FIAT, right?
The pre-flight checklist should have corrected that error no?
It’s not necessarily on the checklist.
Technically this plane cannot crash into terrain while the TAWS system is working correctly and the plane itself is in good working order and has fuel.
It would either be the pilots ignoring the warnings, the system malfunctioned, or the system was turned off.
Now, it’s possible that with multiple demo flights in the mountainous terrain, that the pilots turned the system off because the warnings were irritating to hear all the time.
They were doing many similar flights to allow the various crews from several airlines to fly on the plane.
taws off
Quite possibly they didn’t have certified databases for that area... Should have had a good handheld though.
Not knowing min enroute altitudes is always Pilot error.
Those dang vacuum tubes aren’t as reliable as they used to be.
The plane has been in service for a while, and they knew well in advance where they would be doing the demo flights.
Even without the data, the system still warns you.
If it’s on.
Why did they turn off the terrain warning system on this flight?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2882235/posts?page=12#4
Because they were flying this demo flight in the area multiple times and the warnings were irritating?
Why did they turn off the terrain warning system on this flight?
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They didn’t. The airplane is on the ground.
That’s the identical overhead to the Airbus A320 (except the upper right toggle switches with Russian lettering). I have 3,000 hours in that type as a Captain. The Ext PWR/Avail/ON means the airplane is on the ground and external electrical power is being supplied to the aircraft. It’s also why both Generators show fault/off, because the engines are not running. If they were, the generators would pick up the load and kick off the external power (it would then only show AVAIL). The terrain warning system does not/cannot work on the ground other than a test mode, thus TERR/FAULT/OFF.
I should not have said “identical” in the above comment.” It’s very similar, and certain switches and switch types are identical. ;))
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