MOSCOW, November 19 (RIA Novosti) – The pilot of a Russian airliner that crashed on Sunday while preparing to land had no experience of flying the missed approach procedure that he had initiated just before the disaster, the airline’s director said Tuesday.
The jet, a Tatarstan Airlines Boeing 737, was flying from Moscow to Kazan in the Republic of Tatarstan when it crashed at about 7:30 p.m. local time (1530 GMT) Sunday, killing all 44 passengers and six crew on board including the President of Tatarstan's son and the local head of the Federal Security Service.
When asked if the pilot had experience of flying such a maneuver in a real aircraft (as opposed to a simulator), a standard procedure for an airline pilot who cannot complete a non-visual approach, Aksan Giniyatullin, the director of Tatarstan Airlines, said “I think not.”
He insisted however that the crew was experienced, with the captain having a total of 2,500 flight hours and his co-pilot 1,900.
Rescue Workers Fight Flames at Kazan Crash
 Add video to blogYou may place this material on your blog by copying the code. | ||
(1:30 / 9.49Mb / просмотров видео: 1559)
RIA Novosti
Rescue Workers Fight Flames at Kazan Crash
The plane’s commander, Rustam Sulikhov, informed air traffic control that the aircraft was in a “non-landing configuration” during the initial approach and he intended to sort out the problem after going around for another attempt, state broadcaster Rossiya-24 said Monday.
That probably meant the aircraft’s flaps or undercarriage were not set up as required for landing, according to a British airline pilot contacted by RIA Novosti. The pilot would have been right to go around and sort that problem out on a subsequent approach, he said.
Russia's transport minister Maxim Sokolov said the aircraft “hit the ground vertically,” which pilots say is consistent with a stall following a loss of airspeed or excessive climb attitude – a hazard facing any crew climbing away after a missed approach, particularly in poor weather or at night.
A video posted by various Russian media outlets Monday showed the plane plummeting vertically into the ground and exploding into a fireball.
The aircraft had originally been due to fly to another destination, but was put on the Kazan route at the last minute as there were too many passengers for the original designated plane, a Bombardier CRJ200.
The Interstate Aviation Committee said Monday investigators had located two seriously damaged cockpit voice recorder containers from the Boeing 737. Experts said one of them had no data unit, the search for which is ongoing.
Giniyatullin confirmed that the plane that crashed in Kazan had suffered a decompression problem last year.
The airliner, which has been in service since 1990, had previously been operated by seven airlines, including Uganda Airlines. Tatarstan Airlines had operated the plane since 2008.
Crash investigators said the possible causes of the accident included technical malfunction and pilot error.
No comments :
Post a Comment