Who would want to kill the son of Tatarstan’s governor and the head of the Tatarstan branch of the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB?
"Russia plane crash leaves 50 dead; Jet was trying to make second landing attempt" by Jim Heintz | Associated Press, November 18, 2013
MOSCOW — A Boeing 737 jetliner crashed and burst into flames Sunday night while trying to land at the airport in the Russian city of Kazan, killing all 50 people aboard in the latest of a string of deadly crashes across the country.
The Tatarstan Airlines plane was trying to make a second landing attempt when it touched the surface of the runway near the control tower, and was “destroyed and caught fire,” said Sergei Izvolky, the spokesman for the Russian aviation agency.
The Emergencies Ministry released a list of the dead, which included Irek Minnikhanov, the son of Tatarstan’s governor, and Alexander Antonov, who headed the Tatarstan branch of the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB.
Some Russian air crashes have been blamed on the use of aging aircraft, but industry experts point to a number of other problems, including poor crew training, crumbling airports, lax government controls, and widespread neglect of safety in the pursuit of profits.
They also building Dreamliners for Russia?
The Emergencies Ministry released photographs from the nighttime scene showing parts of the aircraft and debris scattered across the ground. Ambulances lined up in front of the airport building.
Yeah, what's with the debris?
It was not clear why the plane’s first landing attempt was unsuccessful. Boeing said it would provide assistance to the investigation into the cause....
A journalist who said she had flown on the same aircraft from Kazan to Moscow’s Domodedovo airport earlier in the day told Channel One state television that the landing in Moscow had been frightening because of a strong vibration during the final minutes of the flight....
President Vladimir Putin ordered that a commission be formed to investigate Sunday’s crash, his spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told local news agencies.
Aeroflot, Russian’s main national carrier, has a fleet of modern aircraft, but much of the country’s regional airline fleet is aging. Officials said the Boeing 737 that crashed was 23 years old.
Would IMPORTANT OFFICIALS be traveling in a piece of shit?
Tatarstan is one of the wealthier regions of Russia because of its large deposits of oil. It is also is a major manufacturing center, producing trucks, helicopters, and planes. About half of the people who live in the republic are ethnic Tatars, most of whom are Muslims.
No suspicion of terrorism? The omissions say more than the words printed.
Because of the city’s growing economic importance, there are plans for construction of a high-speed rail line to Moscow. The train trip now takes more than 11 hours.
Russia’s last fatal airliner crash was in December, when a Russian-made Tupolev careered off the runway at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport and slammed into the slope of a highway. Investigators say equipment failure caused the crash, which killed five people.
--more--"
"Video shows near-vertical crash of Russian plane" by Vladimir Kondrashov | Associated Press, November 19, 2013
KAZAN, Russia — The grainy airport video is dark, short, and chilling. Within five seconds, a dot of light that Russian authorities said is a Boeing 737 appears in the sky over the tarmac and plunges to the ground in a near-vertical crash. The result is a blinding fireball.
Related: Shocking video: Boeing’s nosedive in Kazan captured as cause of crash debated
The video shown Monday by Russian television stations of Sunday night’s horrifying crash at Kazan airport that killed all 50 people onboard raises questions, including why the jet’s second attempt to land at night in good weather went so horribly wrong.
Russian investigators combed through the wreckage Monday. Experts from the US National Transportation Safety Board, Boeing Co., and the Federal Aviation Administration were heading to the scene.
Why?
The Boeing 737 belonging to Tatarstan Airlines was making its second attempt at a landing in Kazan, 520 miles east of Moscow, according to Alexander Poltinin, head of the local branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee.
Poltinin said investigators were looking into possible pilot error or equipment failure and added that it could take weeks to identify the remains.
Uh-huh.
Printed version of Globe goes on:
"The traffic controller at the Kazan airport who contacted the plane before the crash said the crew told him they weren't ready to land as it was approaching but didn't specify the problem.
Investigators have found both of the plane's black boxes — which record the plane's performance and the crew's conversations — but said they were damaged.
The brief video taken by an airport security camera showed the plane going down at high speed at a nearly vertical angle and then hitting the ground and exploding. It was confirmed as authentic to The Associated Press by the emergency press service at Kazan airport and other Russian officials.
Magomed Tolboyev, a highly decorated Russian test pilot, said on Rossiya television that it wasn't immediately clear why the crew was unable to land on their first try in good weather.
John Cox, an aviation safety consultant who flew 737s for 15 years for US Airways, said one of the first issues investigators will look at based on the nearly vertical angle of descent in the video will be whether the plane experienced an aerodynamic stall, which usually occurs when a plane slows to the point where its wings lose lift.
"Anytime you have an airplane that gets this vertical, the immediate suspicion is that it stalled," Cox said in an interview. "The airplane hit very hard ... it's in a lot of small pieces."
Cox, a former accident investigator for the Air Line Pilots Association, said it's unlikely the accident was the result of any design flaw in the 737, a short- to medium-haul jet. The plane was first introduced by Boeing in 1968, although there have been major changes in subsequent generations.
Friends of the air crash victims gathered on a central square in Kazan on Monday evening to commemorate the victims.
Investigators have started looking through the company's records, which showed the plane was built 23 years ago and had been used by seven other carriers prior to being picked up by Tatarstan Airlines in 2008.
In 2001, it was damaged in a landing accident in Brazil that injured no one.
The company insisted that the aircraft was in good condition for the flight. The carrier has had a good safety record but appears to have run into financial problems recently.
Its personnel went on strike in September over back wages, and the Kazan airport authority has gone to arbitration to claim what it said was Tatarstan Airlines' debt for servicing its planes.
**********************
What my web search enabled me to add:
Industry experts have blamed some recent Russian crashes on a cost-cutting mentality that neglects safety in the chase for profits....
Marat Zaripov, deputy head of the local branch of the Investigative Committee, initially told reporters that his team would look into all theories, including a terrorist attack. But the Investigative Committee said in a statement later Monday that it was now considering three possible causes: a technical fault, a pilot error or adverse weather conditions....
I was told good weather so that is out or was a lie.
John Gadzinski, a 737 pilot for a major U.S. airline and an aviation safety consultant, agreed, after watching the video, that the plane was almost certainly stalled, which means the pilots had lost control of the airplane.
Such situations are extremely difficult to recover from at the low altitudes planes are usually flying at near airports, which are generally around 2,000 to 3,000 feet, he said.
"No pilot puts an airplane into a 90 degree dive," on purpose, Gadzinkski said. "Once the nose of the airplane drops below a certain degree, it's like a big bowling ball — it just takes a lot of effort to get that nose up."
If a stall occurs at cruising altitude — up around 30,000 feet — there is more time to increase power, pick up speed and regain control, he said.
Such "loss of control" accidents, as they are termed in the aviation industry, are responsible for more deaths than any other type of air crash because they are rarely survivable, according to the Flight Safety Foundation, an industry-supported global aviation safety nonprofit based in Alexandria, Va.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration released its first major overhaul of pilot training regulations in decades with a particular focus on training pilots how to recover from stalls."
--more--"
Hmmmmmmm!
"2d landing try led to Russian plane crash" by Jim Heintz | Associated Press, November 20, 2013
MOSCOW — The pilots of a Boeing 737 that plunged into the ground at Kazan airport lost speed in a steep climb then overcompensated and sent the plane into a near-vertical dive, according to a preliminary report released Tuesday by Russian aviation specialists. All 50 people aboard were killed.
Would experienced pilots do that?
The Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee, which oversees civil flights in much of the former Soviet Union, said the plane’s engines and other systems were working fine until the moment the plane crashed Sunday night.
Hmmmmmmmm!!
This has the stink of CIA all over it.
The Tatarstan Airlines plane was flying from Moscow to the central city of Kazan, 450 miles to the east. The Russian aviation specialists said the plane’s two pilots had failed to make a proper landing approach on their first attempt, so they began a second try. The report did not specify why the pilots aborted the first landing.
To get the plane ready for the second try, the pilots put the plane’s engines on maximum power and raised the plane’s nose up to an angle of about 25 degrees, the report said. That caused a loss of speed.
They should have known better! They should have known it would stall. I know because I saw Why Planes Crash!
The normal procedure during an aborted landing is to apply near-maximum power and assume about a 5-to-7 degree nose-up attitude, said Kevin Hiatt, a former Delta Air Lines chief pilot and president of the Flight Safety Foundation, a US-based nonprofit.
‘‘Twenty-five degrees nose-up is excessive. There’s no question about that whatsoever,’’ Hiatt said.
At an altitude of about 2,200 feet, the crew tried to gain speed and avert a stall by putting the nose of the plane down. The report said the plane then went into a dive of about 75 degrees and smashed into the ground.
Why would they do that when they had just raised it in such a reckless manner?
--more--"
While my initial hypothesis may seem conspiratorial, it is a well know fact that aircraft can be subject to remote control takeover due to hacking. You will have to investigate for yourself and make up your own mind. Who benefits?
