Disaster Dozens killed as passenger plane crashes in Kazakhstan - No it wasn't a Boeing.

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Dozens of people have died after a passenger plane crashed with 67 people on board in Kazakhstan, local officials say.

Authorities in Azerbaijan, where the flight originated, say there were at least 30 survivors.

Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 caught fire as it attempted to make an emergency landing near the Kazakh city of Aktau.

The plane was en route to Grozny in Russia but it was diverted due to fog, the airline told the BBC.

Video verified by Reuters news agency shows the plane heading towards the ground at high speed, with its landing gear down.

Seconds after it seems to attempt to land, a huge fireball erupts.

The airline said the plane "made an emergency landing" about 3km (1.9 miles) from Aktau.

It took off from the Azerbaijani capital Baku at 03:55 GMT on Wednesday, and crashed around 06:28, data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed.

There were 62 passengers and 5 crew members on board the Embraer 190 aircraft, the transport ministry said.

Those on board were mostly Azerbaijani nationals, but there were also some passengers from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Out of the 25 known survivors, 22 were taken to hospital, the emergency ministry said.

Unverified video footage showed emergency services pulling people out of the wreckage and survivors crawling out.

Both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have launched investigations into the cause of the accident. Embraer told the BBC it was "ready to assist all relevant authorities".

The BBC has contacted Azerbaijan Airlines for comment.

The aircraft involved was an Embraer E190, the Brazilian company is a smaller rival to Boeing and Airbus, it traditionally has a strong safety record.

 

[Mound Dweller]

Something interesting I noticed is that the vast majority of pro-Russia Twitter and the couple of Telegram channels I checked have been more or less completely silent on this. At most they may have reported on it when it happened but after the images of the crash with obvious AD damage came out, they quickly buried their hands in the sand. But when MH17 happened these types spewed out dozens upon dozens different propaganda scenarios of why it must have actually been Ukraine that destroyed it within a single day, but with this, nothing.

They'll be waiting for instructions but the instructions won't be coming because it's a fustercluck and the agitprop feeders know it.
The only way to explain any of it makes great Russia look bad so of course they simply do not explain it.

 

[Google.com]

Something interesting I noticed is that the vast majority of pro-Russia Twitter and the couple of Telegram channels I checked have been more or less completely silent on this. At most they may have reported on it when it happened but after the images of the crash with obvious AD damage came out, they quickly buried their hands in the sand. But when MH17 happened these types spewed out dozens upon dozens different propaganda scenarios of why it must have actually been Ukraine that destroyed it within a single day, but with this, nothing.

Have the Ukrainians even said much either? Usually the journos love shoving Ukraine's statement on anything in the region but I haven't seen anything there either.

 

[Ghostse]

Something interesting I noticed is that the vast majority of pro-Russia Twitter and the couple of Telegram channels I checked have been more or less completely silent on this. At most they may have reported on it when it happened but after the images of the crash with obvious AD damage came out, they quickly buried their hands in the sand. But when MH17 happened these types spewed out dozens upon dozens different propaganda scenarios of why it must have actually been Ukraine that destroyed it within a single day, but with this, nothing.

They were spewing a lot of propaganda at the start then stopped because the lies were getting too ridiculous and outlandish. There was a lot of "the radio said flock of birds" and "that damage is from the turbines exploding" and "It was Ukrainian drone that did it" but that stuff was easily debunked. So now they are awaiting Moscow's next programing. Unlike MH17 there are also survivors and that's going to be very hard to fight.

Russia has been shut out of the investigation, so they don't know EXACTLY how bad it is and thus can't formulate a response. See: Mr Beast sexual harrassment & grooming issues.

I'd like to believe that its just a case of everyone agreeing "This is really fucked up: shooting a SAM into a civilian airliner, denying them landing, sending them back over a large body of water, jamming their GPS and comms. Shit is fucked up and completely indefensible." but I know better.

Have the Ukrainians even said much either? Usually the journos love shoving Ukraine's statement on anything in the region but I haven't seen anything there either.

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake"
There is nothing Ukraine could say right now that would be worse than Moscow's copaganda.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Yup. But not just victims. They are looking for anything someone's family can bury.

This looks to have still been early on. So they were probably still looking for potentially alive victims. There are going to be a lot of comparisons between this crash and UA232 back in the day. The DC-10 that lost all hydraulics. Was being steered by the wing engines alone. And almost succeeded in landing at Sioux City, before cartwheeling in. Like this, about half the people on the plane survived. In that case the rescuers had almost an hour to get setup and pre-positioned. This was a witnessed crash. The Fire Rescue Teams watched it come in. And the rescuers were still completely blindsided when dozens of victims started walking out of the cornfields next to the airport. I was on the scene for Avianca052 in '90, and it was the same thing. The survivors went EVERYWHERE (in remarkably annoying terrain for what was the most expensive neighborhood on Long Island).

Footage of UA232

Spoiler

For those curious a surprisingly decent TV Movie of the week about the Sioux City Crash. It stars Charleton Heston, James Coburn and Johnboy Walton. I used to show this to my Disaster Management Classes. It goes into really good detail about the disaster response, and the preparation leading up to the event.

Plus, I mean Charleton Heston's the pilot. You can't go wrong there.

 

[Ghostse]

This looks to have still been early on. So they were probably still looking for potentially alive victims. There are going to be a lot of comparisons between this crash and UA232 back in the day. The DC-10 that lost all hydraulics. Was being steered by the wing engines alone. And almost succeeded in landing at Sioux City, before cartwheeling in. Like this, about half the people on the plane survived. In that case the rescuers had almost an hour to get setup and pre-positioned. This was a witnessed crash. The Fire Rescue Teams watched it come in. And the rescuers were still completely blindsided when dozens of victims started walking out of the cornfields next to the airport. I was on the scene for Avianca052 in '90, and it was the same thing. The survivors went EVERYWHERE (in remarkably annoying terrain for what was the most expensive neighborhood on Long Island).

My groundschool instructor who had gotten some training from an investigator on UA232, and had a chance to meet and talk with Al Haynes.

The really fucked up thing about UA232 is that the DC-10 would randomly do altitude oscillations. The aircraft happened to do one right as they near the ground. If it had not done so, UA232 would have landed with no fatalities.

 

[Hitman One]

Russians are absolute fucking niggers not fit to be part of polite society.

 

[mindlessobserver]

This looks to have still been early on. So they were probably still looking for potentially alive victims. There are going to be a lot of comparisons between this crash and UA232 back in the day. The DC-10 that lost all hydraulics. Was being steered by the wing engines alone. And almost succeeded in landing at Sioux City, before cartwheeling in. Like this, about half the people on the plane survived. In that case the rescuers had almost an hour to get setup and pre-positioned. This was a witnessed crash. The Fire Rescue Teams watched it come in. And the rescuers were still completely blindsided when dozens of victims started walking out of the cornfields next to the airport. I was on the scene for Avianca052 in '90, and it was the same thing. The survivors went EVERYWHERE (in remarkably annoying terrain for what was the most expensive neighborhood on Long Island).

This is just idle thinking since I don't have any real knowledge of aviation engineering, but would it be possible to create manual cranks to use in an emergency? The big issue from what I am seeing is the captain lost the ability to control the air brakes and the tail section, which is a big fucking problem on final approach to a landing. At a minimum, would it be possible to manually deploy the flaps by hand crank in the final minutes after the pilot is committed to coming down onto the ground? Even if it still goes sideways and spins out, it would be better to do that at the slowest possible speed then relying on foreword thrust from the engines.

 

[cuttysnark]

Avianca052 crashed damn close to Teddy Roosevelt's house.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Have the Ukrainians even said much either? Usually the journos love shoving Ukraine's statement on anything in the region but I haven't seen anything there either.

Not much from Ukraine either. Its sort of their fault too, in the sense they were conducting an air raid on Chechnya at the time. But again not really. Its a bit of a cope to say its Ukraine's fault for attacking a country its at war with. The issue with respect to the Russo-Ukrainian war spillover effects is Russia is trying to pretend its not being subjected to air raids by Ukraine on its cities, and part of that deflection is to not restrict air space when an air battle commences.

This would not have even happened had Russia closed air space over Grozny and ordered all civilian traffic to divert, and THEN gave the green light to its air defense units to open fire on targets. Hell, from a purely military standpoint, that would be ideal. Because you can safely assume all the radar tracks not obeying the restriction and heading into it instead are hostile. Making target acquisition easier. But its not politically expedient for Russia to do this, because again, Moscow still wants to maintain the pretension its not locked in a war with Ukraine, and that the war has not progressed according to plan. So military expediency and basic common sense get thrown out the window in favor of maintaining the political fiction.

 

[Ghostse]

This is just idle thinking since I don't have any real knowledge of aviation engineering, but would it be possible to create manual cranks to use in an emergency? The big issue from what I am seeing is the captain lost the ability to control the air brakes and the tail section, which is a big fucking problem on final approach to a landing. At a minimum, would it be possible to manually deploy the flaps by hand crank in the final minutes after the pilot is committed to coming down onto the ground? Even if it still goes sideways and spins out, it would be better to do that at the slowest possible speed then relying on foreword thrust from the engines.

Yes and no but no.

tl;dr: With the forces involved, you can't make a practical system powered solely by human strength to get these systems out. You could make a install some sort of high-ratio gearing system, but doing would degrade overall safety and more likely that it fails or causes something to fail and results in a higher rate of issues with landing gear.
Basically commercial airliners aren't supposed to be taking SAMs to the face regardless of how many times Russia does it.
If the Titanic had lifeboats for all passengers that wouldn't matter if a warship had raked them with fragmentation shells and destroyed the boats.

Landing gear have an entirely separate "manual" system but this was apparently damaged as well. On larger planes there are additional manual accesses but on a smaller jet like this there just isn't enough space for practically accessible panels. The other thing is the plane is traveling at high speeds with a lot of forces involved. To fight those you'd need some MASSIVE gear ratios and in the average emergency that the 100-seater is going to encounter you won't have enough time to do anything about that.

For flaps, there should be some truly mechanical controls (I think; my info is would be for like 90s planes) but my understanding is that those were fucked up by the SAM. It might have been working on the non-explosion side, but trying to land with airbrakes on one wing is much worse than trying to land with none.

 

[Google.com]

Not much from Ukraine either. Its sort of their fault too, in the sense they were conducting an air raid on Chechnya at the time. But again not really. Its a bit of a cope to say its Ukraine's fault for attacking a country its at war with. The issue with respect to the Russo-Ukrainian war spillover effects is Russia is trying to pretend its not being subjected to air raids by Ukraine on its cities, and part of that deflection is to not restrict air space when an air battle commences.

This would not have even happened had Russia closed air space over Grozny and ordered all civilian traffic to divert, and THEN gave the green light to its air defense units to open fire on targets. Hell, from a purely military standpoint, that would be ideal. Because you can safely assume all the radar tracks not obeying the restriction and heading into it instead are hostile. Making target acquisition easier. But its not politically expedient for Russia to do this, because again, Moscow still wants to maintain the pretension its not locked in a war with Ukraine, and that the war has not progressed according to plan. So military expediency and basic common sense get thrown out the window in favor of maintaining the political fiction.

I actually decided to look at Russias active NOTAMs after reading this. It was a bit hard to look for because the only public way I could find to view Russian Notams without some sort of professional tool was through their CIACA which chooses to send them in the amazing and highly advanced format of a 420 page microsoft word PDF once every day with no specific method of sorting. But I could hardly see any related to the war except banning Bremunda, US, Irish, British registered planes and GPS jamming alerts. Infact in Crimea Russia specifically says "Don't listen to Ukraine Notams, airport is open and totally safe tm"

This is just idle thinking since I don't have any real knowledge of aviation engineering, but would it be possible to create manual cranks to use in an emergency? The big issue from what I am seeing is the captain lost the ability to control the air brakes and the tail section, which is a big fucking problem on final approach to a landing. At a minimum, would it be possible to manually deploy the flaps by hand crank in the final minutes after the pilot is committed to coming down onto the ground? Even if it still goes sideways and spins out, it would be better to do that at the slowest possible speed then relying on foreword thrust from the engines.

I posted this earlier but there is a cheap and safe solution to this, the FAA just determined it's too rare to mandate.

There actually has been a single safe landing that proves it can be possible to land an aircraft with just the thrust controls with damage and without a computer assistance system. But it is half luck and incredibly difficult.

 

[mindlessobserver]

I posted this earlier but there is a cheap and safe solution to this, the FAA just determined it's too rare to mandate.

So, reading this, it would seem the big issue, beyond just control of the vehicle, is getting the flaps deployed prior to a crash landing to cause a rapid decrease in speed prior to impact. Maybe not a hand crank, but perhaps an emergency redundancy system similar to airbags in a car. I hate to utter the words "Explosive charge" in the context of an airplane, but would it be possible to create a one time use system that would slam the flaps into fully upright braking position? Hell, if its actually the unmentionable words, it would require no mechanical input at all, provided the button the Pilots push has a wireless connection to the devices. If there is a security concern, maybe require a nuclear switch consideration. Two buttons must be pushed, that are beyond arms length, by the pilot and copilot at the same time.

 

[Google.com]

So, reading this, it would seem the big issue, beyond just control of the vehicle, is getting the flaps deployed prior to a crash landing to cause a rapid decrease in speed prior to impact. Maybe not a hand crank, but perhaps an emergency redundancy system similar to airbags in a car. I hate to utter the words "Explosive charge" in the context of an airplane, but would it be possible to create a one time use system that would slam the flaps into fully upright braking position? Hell, if its actually the unmentionable words, it would require no mechanical input at all, provided the button the Pilots push has a wireless connection to the devices.

When I read about the Japan Airlines no hydraulic crash they mentioned that they actually had a backup electric motor to control their flaps and they tried to use that to regain control of their plane but it was too slow to respond to be effectively used to control the planes roll. While trying to use it to turn they accidentally went the wrong way and nearly flipped contributing to the crash.

But the main goal with the PCA system was to make it not a crash landing. Theres another video out there somewhere but I can't seem to find it anymore where they installed this experimental system on a real MD-11 and landed using it and it appeared to be a normal landing from the outside if little bit of a bounce.

 

[Ghostse]

I posted this earlier but there is a cheap and safe solution to this, the FAA just determined it's too rare to mandate.

There actually has been a single safe landing that proves it can be possible to land an aircraft with just the thrust controls with damage and without a computer assistance system. But it is half luck and incredibly difficult.

Just going to point out that in those sample cases the landing gear was working. J2-8243 didn't have any gear (but did have rudder, but only moderate elevator) so I don't think this system would have made a difference here despite its general utility. The other issues was airspeed and no ability to deploy airbrakes, and I don't think this would have helped unless I'm missing something.

So, reading this, it would seem the big issue, beyond just control of the vehicle, is getting the flaps deployed prior to a crash landing to cause a rapid decrease in speed prior to impact. Maybe not a hand crank, but perhaps an emergency redundancy system similar to airbags in a car. I hate to utter the words "Explosive charge" in the context of an airplane, but would it be possible to create a one time use system that would slam the flaps into fully upright braking position? Hell, if its actually the unmentionable words, it would require no mechanical input at all, provided the button the Pilots push has a wireless connection to the devices. If there is a security concern, maybe require a nuclear switch consideration. Two buttons must be pushed, that are beyond arms length, by the pilot and copilot at the same time.

If you're going that far it'd just be better go the full airbag route to attach a parachute to the plane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachute_System

 

[RodgerDodger]

There actually has been a single safe landing that proves it can be possible to land an aircraft with just the thrust controls with damage and without a computer assistance system. But it is half luck and incredibly difficult.

Those boys in Bagdad had to have an Angel working overtime for them. One of the wings was on fire. They landed it off field in a stretch of desert scrub. And somehow landed the plane safely in a Mine Field. There's a point where you have exhausted every possibility of skill and luck and something else has to be looking out for you. Because damn!

And the kicker? Even after taking a missile hit, being on fire and crashing in the mine field, the Air Force was able to tow the plane back to the airport and DHL fixed it and put it back in service. It wasn't even a Hull Loss.

So, reading this, it would seem the big issue, beyond just control of the vehicle, is getting the flaps deployed prior to a crash landing to cause a rapid decrease in speed prior to impact. Maybe not a hand crank, but perhaps an emergency redundancy system similar to airbags in a car. I hate to utter the words "Explosive charge" in the context of an airplane, but would it be possible to create a one time use system that would slam the flaps into fully upright braking position? Hell, if its actually the unmentionable words, it would require no mechanical input at all, provided the button the Pilots push has a wireless connection to the devices. If there is a security concern, maybe require a nuclear switch consideration. Two buttons must be pushed, that are beyond arms length, by the pilot and copilot at the same time.

Flaps don't cause a loss in airspeed. They permit the plane to fly slower without stalling. And Flaps are not a binary "out" or "In" you vary them based on where you are in the flight profile. How much flaps to set involves variable such as plane weight or load, landing speed, length of runway, landing conditions, etc.

The other system you are likely thinking of is the spoilers or air breaks. Those are the big panels in the top of the wing that lift up. Their main purpose is to kill the aerodynamic lift of the wings, and push the plane hard onto the runway for landing. There are rare circumstances where the pilots might briefly apply them during flight if they need to bleed off some altitude in a short distance, without greatly increasing airspeed. The spoilers are normally set in the "armed" position on approach to landing. What this means is when the plane feels a certain amount of weight on the main landing gear, it automatically pops the spoilers.

The thing is, in a damaged plane it is generally inadvisable to make the flaps go out with no means to retract them. Because if only one comes out and you can't pull it right back in, you're dead. The two go to examples are American Airlines Flight 191, the infamous case of the DC-10 losing an engine on takeoff at Chicago O'Hare. And El Al 1862. The Israeli Cargo 747 that had 2 engines on 1 wing fall off over Amsterdam. With the plane crashing into an apartment building.

 

[Cedric_Eff]

My groundschool instructor who had gotten some training from an investigator on UA232, and had a chance to meet and talk with Al Haynes.

The really fucked up thing about UA232 is that the DC-10 would randomly do altitude oscillations. The aircraft happened to do one right as they near the ground. If it had not done so, UA232 would have landed with no fatalities.

Big reminder on why McDonell Douglass was absolutely filled with crackheads all the way down.

The only division of MD that was decent was their rocketry division. They practically built the methods that Blorgin and SpaceX use today.

 

[Corette]

Apparently Turkmenistan has joined the countries which have suspended flights to Russia until the end of January.

edit.
source:https://caspianpost.com/turkmenistan/turkmenistan-airlines-suspends-flights-to-moscow

archive.

 

[R00T]

Two buttons must be pushed, that are beyond arms length, by the pilot and copilot at the same time

If we’re sticking bombs on the side of the plane I want it to be full wacky. All the cabin lights go red and an awooga siren starts going while an automated voice repeats “Attention passengers, the pilots have activated the Sodom and Gomorrah option.”

Just get everyone frazzled.

 

[KiwiFuzz2]

Putin Apologizes for Kazakhstan Crash but Stops Short of Taking Responsibility

President Vladimir Putin of Russia called his Azerbaijani counterpart, the Kremlin said, to apologize for the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Saturday apologized for the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane this past week, breaking the Kremlin’s three-day silence on the accident that claimed the lives of 38 people. He did not explicitly acknowledge Russia’s responsibility for the crash.

The Kremlin said in a statement that Mr. Putin “offered his apologies” for the crash in a phone call to his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev. Mr. Putin told Mr. Aliyev “that the tragic incident took place in Russian airspace.” The phone call was initiated by the Russian leader, the Kremlin said.

Mr. Putin said that as the plane approached its scheduled destination of Grozny, in southern Russia, Russian air defenses had begun to repulse an attack by Ukrainian drones on the Grozny airport and others nearby, according to the statement. The statement stopped short of attributing the crash to a Russian air-defense missile, a cause that investigators in Azerbaijan have focused on.

Azerbaijan’s presidential office confirmed that Mr. Putin offered apologies to Mr. Aliev, but went further than the Kremlin in blaming Russian air defenses.

“President Ilham Aliyev emphasized that the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane encountered external physical and technical interference while in Russian airspace, resulting in a complete loss of control,” Azerbaijan’s presidential office said in a statement.

The plane was traveling from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny, but was diverted from its path. It eventually crashed in Kazakhstan after crossing the Caspian Sea. More than half of people on board were Azerbaijani citizens. Some of the victims were Russians and Kazakhs.

Mr. Putin said Russia has opened a criminal investigation into the crash. He added that Azerbaijani investigators were on the ground in Grozny, and that officials from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan were present at the site of the crash in Aktau, Kazakhstan.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/28/world/europe/kazakhstan-russia-azerbaijan-plane-crash.html

https://archive.ph/wip/md44P

 

[FedPostalService]

Putin Apologizes for Kazakhstan Crash but Stops Short of Taking Responsibility

Traitors to the West bros, it’s so over