Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Sukhoi Pilot Shouted Just Moments before Accident




The pieces of the puzzle shrouding the Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash are finally emerging and it appears human error is to blame.

A Tempo Magazine report on the Sukhoi accident published Monday, June 18, included an interview between Tempo and a Russian investigator. The interview revealed that the pilot shouted something just moments before the plane hit the cliff.

A Russian investigator who has knowledge of the initial analysis results from the black box said that Yablontsev was about to conduct a maneuver after his request to descend was approved by the Cengkareng tower. “He wanted to fly between two mountain peaks,” said the investigator. Mt. Salak has three peaks with deep valleys.

Aleksandr Yablontsev, 57, was a senior pilot who had flown more than 221 types of aircraft and clocked 14,000 flight hours. The former fighter pilot had also been involved in the manufacturing of Sukhoi aircraft since 2004. With such skill and experience, the investigator added that Yablontsev wanted to show off the sophisticated technology of the Sukhoi superjet to the passengers.

Without knowledge of the contour of the flight path to Pelabuhan Ratu, the pilot was surprised when he turned the aircraft right and headed into a cliff on Mt. Salak. The black box recording, according to the Russian investigator, revealed that the pilot shouted something in Russian that meant, “Oh my God, what is this?” in English. The marks on the cliff left by the collision showed that Yablontsev tried to dive upwards but the distance and timing was insufficient to avoid the cliff.

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