Kazakhstan passenger plane crash

cleavers said:
@ChicagoBlue I wonder if the final crayness of the flightpath could have caused by the gear being lowered to land, making it even more difficult to fly ? Though I guess if the hydraulics were only leaking slowly, it may have initially had enough control until near the end ?
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Gear up/Gear down, it doesn’t really have any effect on flight path, other than needing slightly more power to maintain flight path, as the added drag is both symmetrical and along the centerline of the aircraft.

Hydraulics, due to the tremendous pressure they are under (3000-5000psi, depending on the aircraft) are generally not slow leakers. With an aircraft the size of the Embraer, the entire hydraulics quantity would be less than a 35 gallon drum, so any fluid loss would probably have been occurred with a minute…or few minutes…at best.

Gear freefall is so common it is on all kinds of aircraft and, while it may not come down as quickly as when forced down by high hydraulic pressure, and possibly not coming down symmetrically, I cannot see it having much, if any, impact on the flight path beyond the initial introduction of the drag, and certainly not upon the ongoing flight path problems.
 
ChicagoBlue said:
Gear up/Gear down, it doesn’t really have any effect on flight path, other than needing slightly more power to maintain flight path, as the added drag is both symmetrical and along the centerline of the aircraft.

Hydraulics, due to the tremendous pressure they are under (3000-5000psi, depending on the aircraft) are generally not slow leakers. With an aircraft the size of the Embraer, the entire hydraulics quantity would be less than a 35 gallon drum, so any fluid loss would probably have been occurred with a minute…or few minutes…at best.

Gear freefall is so common it is on all kinds of aircraft and, while it may not come down as quickly as when forced down by high hydraulic pressure, and possibly not coming down symmetrically, I cannot see it having much, if any, impact on the flight path beyond the initial introduction of the drag, and certainly not upon the ongoing flight path problems.
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Thanks, you know way more than me, I know and follow quite a lot about aviation, though not professionally.

The thing that came over to me from all the data, was it flew a relatively straight line towards the Kazakh airport (albeit with lots of severe ups and downs), it then obviously had to turn into line for the runway, and seems to have done so, but it suddenly went crazy.

We know it wasn't hit by "birds" in Kazakh air space, it was near Grozny, so I was speculating as to what caused the real crazyness at the end, after what looked like controlled crayness before that, maybe the crew were just fatigued, as it had been quite a long effort already by that point. I wondered if an already pretty unstable aircraft was hampered further by the gear going down, sadly I suspect we'll never know the answer, but that crew still saved numerous lives getting it across 150 miles of open sea without it crashing into the sea, when it was clearly badly compromised.
 
If the Russians came out and said they did it then it wouldn't shock anyone and they're not exactly going to get slapped legs are they?
 
cleavers said:
Thanks, you know way more than me, I know and follow quite a lot about aviation, though not professionally.

The thing that came over to me from all the data, was it flew a relatively straight line towards the Kazakh airport (albeit with lots of severe ups and downs), it then obviously had to turn into line for the runway, and seems to have done so, but it suddenly went crazy.

We know it wasn't hit by "birds" in Kazakh air space, it was near Grozny, so I was speculating as to what caused the real crazyness at the end, after what looked like controlled crayness before that, maybe the crew were just fatigued, as it had been quite a long effort already by that point. I wondered if an already pretty unstable aircraft was hampered further by the gear going down, sadly I suspect we'll never know the answer, but that crew still saved numerous lives getting it across 150 miles of open sea without it crashing into the sea, when it was clearly badly compromised.
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If they didn’t have full control of the elevator, then the aircraft will move up and down due to thrust and left and right due to differential thrust. Controlling both of these while trying to maneuver an aircraft left & right and down towards a runway is exceedingly difficult, as even slight additions or subtractions of power can create large changes. Creating the correct amplitude of change needed to try to bring the aircraft to a single point in three dimensional space AND at a safe speed (4D!) is difficult when everything is working perfectly, as seen on many a go-around! To do that without normal vertical or lateral control is almost impossible!

It is only the miracle of what the human body can withstand, and the strength of aircraft hulls, that saved people in both this crash and United 232. Ironically, the cartwheeling of the crashed aircraft absorbs so much energy (but creates so much trauma to those in the vicinity) that it serves to help save those not at the point of impact. Fickle finger of fate.
 
ChicagoBlue said:
If they didn’t have full control of the elevator, then the aircraft will move up and down due to thrust and left and right due to differential thrust. Controlling both of these while trying to maneuver an aircraft left & right and down towards a runway is exceedingly difficult, as even slight additions or subtractions of power can create large changes. Creating the correct amplitude of change needed to try to bring the aircraft to a single point in three dimensional space AND at a safe speed (4D!) is difficult when everything is working perfectly, as seen on many a go-around! To do that without normal vertical or lateral control is almost impossible!

It is only the miracle of what the human body can withstand, and the strength of aircraft hulls, that saved people in both this crash and United 232. Ironically, the cartwheeling of the crashed aircraft absorbs so much energy (but creates so much trauma to those in the vicinity) that it serves to help save those not at the point of impact. Fickle finger of fate.
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I can barely ride a bike.

Fuckin' show off :)
 
ChicagoBlue said:
Drone activity in the area. GPS jamming occurring to destroy their navigation capability. Mistaken identity by Russians. Air defence missile believed to be destroying Ukrainian drone exploded beside the commercial airplane, peppering the fuselage with shrapnel.

After the explosion, it’s clear the aircraft became very difficult to control, which, with two operating engines (?), suggests hydraulic failure(s) making flight control difficult.

From video footage, when the aircraft is turning there are no spoilers visible. That would suggest loss of hydraulics. The fact that NONE are visible suggests multiple hydraulic systems were lost, as does the fugoidal flight path (rising and falling).

You may have noticed the landing gear was down, which is also a hydraulic function. However, as a safety back-up, the gear can be extended using gravity freefall and locking in place. Sadly, flight control back-ups are generally an alternate hydraulic system, which sometimes shares the load.

I am not an expert on the Embraer jet, but it is standard practice to have different aircraft systems use different hydraulic systems, BUT have CRITICAL SYSTEMS (like flight controls) use more than one hydraulic system, so that one backs up the other in case of failure.

Looking at the flight path, one recalls United 232, in Sioux City, Iowa on July 19, 1989. In that crash, the number 2 engine had an uncontained failure, with fan blade shrapnel piercing the exterior as it exploded.

As misfortune would have it, the DC-10 had one place in the hydraulic system where the THREE different systems came together. That location was in the tail of the aircraft and a piece of shrapnel destroyed it, leading to a total loss of hydraulic fluid, and thus pressure, to move the systems that were controlled by those hydraulics.

That aircraft had to be controlled by the use of the throttles, using differential thrust on the two good engines, to help maneuver the aircraft.

So, while there are significant similarities between the two aircraft flight paths, I don’t know for certain the cause is exactly the same. However, as a pilot for the last 35 years, they look eerily similar, with only the cause of the shrapnel penetrating the fuselage being different.

Because of the location, the parties involved, and the geopolitical realities, we may never know the full truth of what happened, but until I see something to refute my theory, I will continue to believe an air defence missile exploded in close proximity to the aircraft, penetrating the hull and destroying the ability to control the aircraft’s flight path…either due to hydraulic failure, cables being cut or electronic signals being interrupted…most probably the former.

That anyone survived is a miracle, just like with UAL 232. Two people showed heroic skills to almost get them to a runway and died in the act of trying to save the lives entrusted to them.
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Great post.
 
mexico1970 said:
I can barely ride a bike.

Fuckin' show off :)
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Death as an outcome is not what I would call showing off! I’d prefer the grazed knee and the opportunity to get back on the saddle, tbh!

;-)

We have a lot of what we can “black humor” or “graveyard humor” in aviation to cope with the dangers and occasional losses. For instance, when a pilot dies in a crash, a typical pilot response will be “what was his seniority? Did I move up a number?” Some people even whip that out when crossing a busy street in a foreign city…”Let the Captain go first, as we’ll all move up a number if he gets run over!” type stuff.

However, with crashes like this, where heroics lead to pilot death but passengers surviving, we are less dark. These pilots knew they were rolling weighted dice and the chances of success were virtually nil, but they fought all the way down.

I don’t know who they were, their experience levels or even their nationalities, but I do know that not many of us could or would survive such an incident, so I’ll put away the dark humor for these two heroes and simply doff my hat at their professionalism and skill in bringing so many people back for their loved ones.

And, I’d gladly choose the bike myself, even if I have to face plant over the handlebars! ;-)
 
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