In reply to aircooled :
that looks like a recycled lawn mower.
Cool!
In reply to aircooled :
that looks like a recycled lawn mower.
Cool!
Commercial plane crashed today in Kazakhstan heading to Russia. Saying bird strike but reports of explosion and the whole back of the plane appears to be peppered with shrapnel with speculation it was shot down. 20-30 folks appear to have survived and some wild videos around of it coming down.
In reply to johndej :
Hopefully this wasn't deliberate. I saw video of it just above the ground, it appeared intact.
Whatever the cause, it wouldn't surprise me if Putin tries to spin it to his own advantage.
johndej said:Commercial plane crashed today in Kazakhstan heading to Russia. Saying bird strike but reports of explosion and the whip back of the plane appears to be peppered with shrapnel with speculation it was shot down. 20-30 folks appear to have survived and some wild videos of it out of it coming down.
100% shrapnel. That plane was unquestionably shot down.
In reply to DasAuto :
Well, that answers that.
MH17 Pt2: Electric Boogaloo
It's not too late for Russia to claim the plane hit one of these 
stroker said:In reply to aircooled :
that looks like a recycled lawn mower.
Cool!
In a Sci fi series I was reading, insurgents were attacking alien invaders with little R/C cars with explosives attached. Drive 'em under one of the aliens' ground vehicles and boom.
A video on the crash. Looks like the missile shrapnel blew the hydraulic systems open which disabled all the control surfaces, and they tried to land it with only differential thrust for control:
It would not be terribly surprising if the plane was downed by a russian SAM. Rumors are circulating that it may have been air defense mistaking the plane for a Ukrainian drone. No idea how likely it is that a commercial passenger jet would be mistaken for a drone, but it's not inconceivable.
In reply to DarkMonohue :
They're probably just a little bit tense about anything flying over their airspace right now.
DarkMonohue said:.... Rumors are circulating that it may have been air defense mistaking the plan for a Ukrainian drone. No idea how likely it is that a commercial passenger jet would be mistaken for a drone, but it's not inconceivable.
What is this, New Jersey?
My heart goes out to the pilots, they were flying that thing with what little control they had left all the way in and because of that 28 ish people are still alive. Looking at the track on Flightradar they did an amazing job.
berkeley Russia.
In reply to adam525i :
Having to rely solely on differential thrust rarely ends well.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
That was one of the better ones.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_Flight_123
That... wasn't.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Having to rely solely on differential thrust rarely ends well.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
That was one of the better ones.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_Flight_123
That... wasn't.
There was one other instance, a DHL cargo flight in Baghdad about 20 years ago (also from a missile). They managed to land the plane with no injuries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:Having to rely solely on differential thrust rarely ends well.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
That was one of the better ones.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_Flight_123
That... wasn't.
There was one other instance, a DHL cargo flight in Baghdad about 20 years ago (also from a missile). They managed to land the plane with no injuries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident
A picture from that DHL Airbus. It's always better with pics.
and while I'm at it, here's the flight path of UA 232 from the Wiki:
Yup, the analysis of the situation seems to point heavily toward being shot down by Russian air defense. That area has been hit by Ukrainian drones recently, some of which are actually small planes (no where near the size of this plane). Some points to consider.
- Ukrainian attacks come from the north west. SAM defenses would be looking to the north west, but more importantly, placed to the north west. There may have been an attack going on at the time.
- Airport approach would bring the plane around north of the airport (if they were landing to the east). This would also bring the plane to a more reasonable drone speed and height (e.g. not 500 mph at 25,000 ft)
- If landing to the east (runway 8), and hit by air defense to the north, it would be hit on the left side. Which it was.
- The blast penetrated the cabin (shots of oxygen masks down) which could easily cut the hydraulics in the tail, or some other location. The redundancy in a civilian aircraft is less for battle damage (obviously, like in an A10 for example) than for failure, so closer grouping of redundant systems can be more likely.
I wonder (guess) if the hydraulic loss was not super fast (which seems likely based on the holes), and if the plane was on approach, it likely could have easily and safely landed at the destination airport (?!). I certainly understand the want not land at an airport that just shot at you, but it seems like an unfortunate possibility.
As a minor point of trivia, my sister, at the time an air ambulance paramedic, responded to the Sioux City crash (similar circumstance as noted above). It seemed pretty traumatic (that kind of a lot to say from a paramedic, they see a lot)
Some more stuff:
- Power / communication cables have "mysteriously" been cut between Estonia and Finland. The Fins have (not so shockingly) boarded a Russian ship that is suspected of some of the attacks.
- The Ukrainians have reportably captured their first North Koreans. You know, the ones that are not fighting in Ukraine! Looks like he's dead though. At least he won't get the flamethrower treatment.
- The Russians sent a bit of Christmas present to Ukraine. Looks like the Ukrainians got 113 of the 184 but still enough to do significant power infrastructure damage.
Some more info on negotiations, which is surprising only in the fact that it's actually being brought up. The conditions of course are absurd: "You must give back what we stole from you than you took back from us!!!"
A senior Russian official reiterated Russian President Vladimir Putin's insistence that negotiations with Ukraine must be based on the same uncompromising demands he made before the full-scale invasion and at the moment of Russia's greatest territorial gains, despite the fact that Ukraine has liberated a significant amount of territory since then. Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko stated on December 24 that Russia is open to compromise in negotiations with Ukraine, but that Russia will strictly adhere to the conditions that it laid out during negotiations in Istanbul in March 2022, when Russian troops were advancing on Kyiv and throughout eastern and southern Ukraine.[1] Matviyenko added that Russia would not deviate from these conditions by "one iota."[2] The partial agreement that emerged during the Ukraine-Russia negotiations in Istanbul in March 2022 stated that Ukraine would be a permanently neutral state that could not join NATO, and imposed limitations on the Ukrainian military similar to those imposed by the Treaty of Versailles on Germany after World War I, restricting Ukraine's Armed Forces to 85,000 soldiers.[3] Russia's demands at Istanbul were mainly more detailed versions of the demands that Putin made in the months before he launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022, including Ukraine's "demilitarization" and neutrality.[4] Matviyenko is reiterating Putin's demand from his annual Direct Line televised press conference on December 19, and more senior Russian officials are likely to make similar claims to domestic and foreign audiences in coming weeks.[5] ISW continues to assess that senior Russian officials' references to conditions Putin attempted to impose on Ukraine when he believed his full-scale invasion could succeed in a few days in 2022 reflects his projected confidence that he can completely defeat Ukraine militarily despite the tremendous setbacks Ukraine has inflicted on Russian forces since then.
aircooled said:I wonder (guess) if the hydraulic loss was not super fast (which seems likely based on the holes), and if the plane was on approach, it likely could have easily and safely landed at the destination airport (?!). I certainly understand the want not land at an airport that just shot at you, but it seems like an unfortunate possibility.
i can respect that the situation most likely unfolded far more quickly than they were prepared for. As you point out, they were already on approach, so they were working in a very limited timeframe to properly assess the situation, define a course of action beyond "regain control of the airplane", and then act on that to try to land safely.
Hell, from observations from reading NTSB reports as a hobby, simply properly assessing the situation isn't going to be all that easy, as a lot of plane crashes are due in part to missing that step. Also, apparently a lot of former Soviet Bloc pilots seem to be a bit... casual?
It's appears to be a bit worse than initially suspected. Highlights (bolded below):
- They tried to land at the airport three times (foiled by jamming).
- Russia refused to allow them to perform an emergency landing in Russia and made them fly across the Caspian Sea! (someone else's problem I guess)
--------
A Russian insider source, who is reportedly affiliated with Russian law enforcement, claimed that an air defense missile likely struck the plane at an altitude of 2,400 meters approximately 18 kilometers northwest of the Grozny airport over Naursky Raion.[35] The insider source noted that there are several Russian military bases in Naursky Raion that have air defense systems and that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) recently placed several Pantsir systems in Chechnya following Ukrainian drone strikes against the region.[36]
The insider source later published an alleged full transcript of the communication between the plane’s crew and a dispatcher in Grozny.[37] ISW is unable to authenticate the transcript. The alleged transcript suggests that the pilot attempted to land the plane three times in Grozny between 0736 and 0811 Moscow time and that the crew informed the dispatcher several times of the complete failure of the GPS and communication systems as soon as the plane began to descend. The dispatcher also apparently lost radar contact with the plane on numerous occasions. The alleged transcript suggests that the pilot decided to turn the plane around towards Baku at around 0811 before contacting the dispatcher at 0816 with an alarming report that the plane’s controls had failed and that a flock of birds had struck the plane. The insider source noted that the crew may have mistaken an explosion for a collision with a flock of birds. The alleged transcript suggests that the pilot informed the dispatcher that the crew needed help, that the plane was losing control, and that the plane’s hydraulics had stopped working. The alleged transcript suggests that the pilot began to search for an alternative airport in Russia for an emergency landing, notably asking the dispatcher about the weather in the Mineralnye Vody Airport and then requesting information about the Makhachkala Airport. The alleged transcript indicated that the pilot also contacted dispatchers at the Rostov-on-Don Airport (about 744km northwest of Grozny). Euronews reported that sources in Azerbaijan's government stated that Russian authorities did not allow the aircraft to land at any Russian airports and ordered the plane to fly across the Caspian Sea towards Aktau despite the pilot's requests for an emergency landing.[38] Reuters reported that the Makhachkala Airport was closed on the morning of December 25 and that Russian officials did not explain why the plane crossed the Caspian Sea.[39]
Oh, and the Russians apparently JUST ran this TV commercial... uhm... ouch...
And with that last shootdown, missiles have now become the leading cause of commercial aviation deaths over the last decade (even despite the best efforts of Boeing's MCAS):
The War Zone has a pretty good collection of early footage, radar data, and analysis of the shoot down.
https://www.twz.com/air/what-we-know-about-the-azerbaijanin-airliner-that-crashed-in-kazakhstan
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Looks like this crash in South Korea might tip it back, But no worries, I am sure Russian carelessness will tip it back again soon enough.
They landed with the gear up for some reason?! You have to wonder if they were desperate to get on the ground as quickly as possible to avoid the situation the previous crash had (the gear can almost always be lowered manually). The video shows it skidding very fast down the runway, with no flaps or speed brakes deployed, so clearly a serious hydrolic issue (maybe from a bird strike).
Plane burst into flames after skidding off runway at an airport in South Korea, killing at least 120
https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-plane-fire-68da9b0bd5196feed6e7d2db849f461a
In reply to aircooled :
Yep just came to post about that. The fact that they didn't have flaps or spoilers out on top of the gear being stuck up does suggest some kind of hydraulic failure. Also was there no better option than to do this landing on a runway with some kind of concrete bunker structure just after the end of it for the plane to obliterate itself against? 
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