Sukhoi Superjet 100 disappeared from radar in Indonesia

[MIKE JG]

Sorta military related, but I really hope this isn't true:

A Russian passenger jet with at least 44 people on board--including embassy officials--went missing on Wednesday during a demonstration flight in Indonesia, according to reports from the region.
The civilian Sukhoi Superjet 100 "disappeared from radar screens during a flight from Jakarta meant to last 30 minutes," BBC News said.
According to CNN, the aircraft went missing at about 2 p.m. local time. Pilots requested permission to descend from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet, but air traffic controllers lost radio contact. "The plane began making its descent but vanished from radar screens at 6,200 feet in a mountainous area," CNN reported.
The plane was carrying Indonesia businessmen and Russian embassy officials, Reuters reported. (There were conflicting reports of the exact number of people on board. Reuters said 46, the BBC and CNN said 44.)
The demonstration flight--the second of the day--was part of a tour of six Asian countries. The Superjet 100 was the first commercial airliner produced by Sukhoi, a military plane manufacturer. The mid-size jet can carry up to 103 people. Sukhoi plans to produce 1,000 superjets.

[james84]

Hijacking or CFIT the most likely hypothesis. 36 pax + 4 crew on board. The aircraft was on a demo flight and the weather was reported to be bad with low visibility
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18004097

[miljan]

There are some rumors that Pogosyan is on that flight too.If this is true Sukhoi can forget on selling this one unfortunately.It is beautiful jet indeed.

[tango234]

Oh hell, and its a new jet as well

[miljan]

It looks like they hit the hill.They were flying on 10000 and ask for 6000.ATC gave them permission but there is a hill top on 6200.First officer was Alexandar Yablontsev candidate for cosmonaut on Buran,they had also navigator and flying engineer on this flight all of them from Sukhoi company and all top pilots.Weather conditions were really bad and some people pilots say that that part of terrain is very dangerous in that conditions and that most of the pilots says when they fly throught that part:"Now and never again". Place is known as Sukabumi Pass

[fishlips]

I heard 55 people on the TV news. Indonesia is a magnet for aircraft crashes, I would never fly in or out of there.

[btaylo24]

mark

yeah , I agree .. Safety there is an issue.

Africa and Indonesia are my no fly zones!

[MIKE JG]

In countries with modern aviation infrastructure, ATC can save your @ss if you ask for an altitude that is below the minimum safe altitude in that area. In Indonesia, not so much.

[btaylo24]

Looks like they have just found it

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-paci ... 81243.html

[DaleRFU]

Africa and Indonesia are my no fly zones!

India isn't far behind them

[MIKE JG]

Pics from the crash site. Now the question becomes, what role did the Terrain Awareness system play in this. Obviously it didn't do it's job for some reason, they flew straight into the side of a near vertical mountain face.





Just like any accident these days, there was obviously a chain of errors that led to this, any one of them, had they been caught, might have prevented this senseless accident.

[Victory103]

Since I don't have a GPWS yet, would a system like this equipped on an airliner, look far enough ahead of the aircraft?

[Greg]

Since I don't have a GPWS yet, would a system like this equipped on an airliner, look far enough ahead of the aircraft?

I was wondering the same thing. If you're heading for such a near vertical mountain face, is there enough time to pull up when the warning goes off? We also don't know how low the aircraft was in reference to the wall.

Controlled flight into terrain due to an incorrect clearance is a controller's worst nightmare. Although it seems the controllers there are a nightmare themselves

[miljan]

Strange thing is that ARM didn't send any signal on 121,5 and 406 MHz...

[MIKE JG]

Since I don't have a GPWS yet, would a system like this equipped on an airliner, look far enough ahead of the aircraft?

Regular GPWS would not be able to look ahead of the aircraft. It uses the returns from the radar altimeter which of course looks straight down. If the terrain starts rising faster than a preset limit, it will start squawking at you. But in this case, GPWS probably wouldn't have given them enough lead time to miss that ridge.

EGPWS (Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System) uses both the radar altimeter and a terrain database that is loaded into the system. It takes the aircraft's GPS position, altitude and ground speed and compares that to the terrain database to actually produce an image on one of the displays that looks a lot like a weather radar image. Red areas are the highest parts of the terrain followed by yellow, green, brown, etc. It basically gives you a picture of the terrain AHEAD of the aircraft and to the sides. It modulates the color of the terrain based on aircraft proximity and speed to the terrain. At 30 miles, a mountain peak might only be a small yellow blurb of pixels on the screen. As the aircraft continues to fly towards that terrain, it eventually changes color to red to warn the pilots.

But in order for that system to be usable, you have to have an accurate terrain database on board the aircraft.

I don't know if this jet is equipped with EGPWS. As an airliner, my guess is that it is. So that leaves the question as to how this could have happened.

A possibility is that the EGPWS was not working correctly or working at all or another possibility is that the EGPWS did not have terrain data for that part of the world loaded into it.

I would have to do some reading to see if most EGPWS systems use a worldwide database or if you can tailor it to your area of the globe.

Our terrain database for our King Air only covers North America, but this isn't EGPWS, this is another terrain awareness system called TAWS (terrain awareness system). So that aircraft has standard GPWS and TAWS but the two do not interact with one another.

The technology is pretty neat when it works. The question is why it either wasn't or didn't work in this case

[MIKE JG]

Another issue is the grid MORA for that sector.

If you are not familiar with what a MORA is:

There are two types of Minimum Off Route Altitudes (MORAs) – one is called a route MORA and the other is the grid MORA. MORA's give at least 1,000 feet altitude clearance above terrain, and 2,000 feet in mountainous (elevation 5,000 feet+) terrain. Route MORAs provided an obstacle clearance within 10 nautical miles (19 km) on both sides of the airways and within a 10-nautical-mile (19 km) radius around the ends of the airways. Grid MORAs provide an obstacle clearance altitude within a latitude and longitude grid block, usually of one degree by one degree. They are presented in feet (ft), omitting the last two figures. Example: 7,600 feet is given as 76. Grid MORA values clear all terrain and obstructions by 1000 feet in areas where the highest elevations are 5000 feet MSL or lower. MORA values clear all terrain by 2000 feet in areas where the highest elevations are 5001 feet MSL or higher.

From another pilot forum I have been following, the grid MORA for the sector they were in was 122. That would mean the highest obstacle was somewhere in that grid at 10,200 ft MSL. That being the case, what in the HELL were they doing asking for a descent to 6000 ft if they were not absolutely, 100% sure of their exact location??

It doesn't make sense, these were not rookie, low time pilots at the controls.

[bismarck]

GPWS, EGPWS, MORA,TAWS, radar-altimeter, GPS....
All this technology is so useful only if it is used in the right way, it's obvious there is a chain of error that led to this tragedy.

I was just thinking that if you setup a IFR flightplan on the same route, the AI aircraft would have avoided the obstacle...
and we all know that FS AI engine is not a so sofisticated system...

RIP

Giorgio

[miljan]

Mike,
then why ATC approve descend to 6000???

[MIKE JG]

In some countries, the captain is God and no one is to question him. This includes ATC in some cases. There is also a language barrier in many cases. That can cause problems.

I'm guessing that the ATC system in Indonesia is not as good as it should be.

[miljan]

You meant Indonesia? The truth is that there are a lot of accidents and that terrain is hard even for experienced pilots.My opinion is no matter how experienced pilots are they are not familiar with terrain there and ATC should follow protocol especially this aircraft was full with business people form Indonesia,some kind of VIP flight.I still remember what happens in Russia with Polish president and what cause crash to ground,in that case it wasn't ATC but here maybe ATC made mistake too...Investigation will show I don't want to make guilt anybody right now.I just know that Su-100 is state of the art aircraft,equipped for bad weather conditions flying etc...