One dead in SuperJet fire

a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

One of the flight crew, steward Maxim Moiseyev was reportedly in the back of the plane trying to open the door, and when he was unsuccessful, he helped passengers get to the front exits, but died himself. Im thinking it was too damaged to be opened. However, there would be the fire they had to deal with as well.

Edit- I missed Zaphods post about this on the last page.

The fire and hard landing damage would have possibly distorted the rear door frame.

originally posted by: Blackfinger
The fire and hard landing damage would have possibly distorted the rear door frame.

I was wondering about that too.

It took approximately 25 seconds to get both forward slides deployed. The Superjet doesn't have over wing hatches, and the rear doors were unusable. That meant that the passengers at the rear of the aircraft were essentially trapped until the passengers ahead of them evacuated.

www.flightglobal.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58


The article talks about a study that was done and that mentioned the problem of people stopping to retrieve luggage during evacuations, and then says the study wonders if airlines need to do more to make passengers pay attention during that safety briefing done by the flight attendants at the beginning of each flight.

The problem isn't that people don't pay attention, and missed the "in the event of an evacuation do not stop to retrieve carry-on luggage" part of the little demo speech. The problem is that people are selfish and thoughtless. Isn't that common sense? That you and everyone else will get off the burning plane faster if you just GO?

Society is the problem I think, not the safety demonstration at the start of the flight.

a reply to: KansasGirl

The biggest part is the "me me" attitude, but it's not all of it. Some of the delay is people trying to figure out what to do. The majority is people just being jackasses and grabbing their bags though.

I just hope the airlines start pressuring for lockable bins. Not that I expect the MC-21 to sell outside of Russia, but it would be interesting to see how many airlines that do order it go for that option.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I thought, from watching the videos, that it sure seemed to take forever for that damn hatch to open and the slide to fly out. 25 seconds is a long time when fire is burning out of control up the length of the plane. Does it normally take that long to get a door open after the plane comes to a stop? With what we know about the conditions inside the plane- i.e., the fire wasn't in the cabin yet, and the trouble was at the back of the plane anyway. Why 25 seconds?

a reply to: KansasGirl

That's total time for both slides to open. The first was fully deployed at 15 seconds, the second 10 seconds later. The cabin crew waits initially to hear from the cockpit crew to open the doors and begin the evacuation. If they don't hear from them after a set period of time, or they see something, like fire, they take matters into their own hands and pop the slides.

There's also the shock factor. That was a hard hit, and it probably took a few seconds to get their wits back and realize what was happening.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Have you seen the video of the co-pilot climbing through the cockpit window onto the nose of the plane? He climbs out and then gets himself over to the slide, and slips down it. Then you see firefighters helping him climb back UP the slide. Black smoke just barrels out of the cockpit window as he climbs out.

ETA: here's the video

Its a wonder the tanks didnt blow.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: mightmight

You don't roll trucks for comms out. Loss of comms isn't an emergency, and all indications right now are that they said they were returning, but didn't declare an emergency until the transponder went to 7700 on final approach.

They had five minutes between 7700 and actually landing... more than enough time for a proper emergency response.

I don't know much about this stuff, but i would imagine a loss of comms doesn't trigger an immdiate return for an emergency landing. I would think the aircraft would just turn into a holding partern to sort things out.
An immediate return without any further communication would suggest something more catastrophic going on with the aircraft and should lead to a full scale emergency response in any case.

But that's hypothetical, apparently the pilots were in contact with the air traffic controller, just reported pan pan and said they had situation under control. Very unfortunate.

a reply to: mightmight

The standard is one truck within 3 minutes of the alarm, and all trucks within 4. The alarm is called in from the tower, so it depends on when they alerted them.

According to the airport operator the alarm wasn't sounded until after the aircraft made its hard landing. The first two trucks arrived two minutes later, and it took 16 minutes to put the fire out.

www.flightglobal.com...

More details are coming out. The aircraft landed 1.6 tons over its maximum landing weight, due to it having just departed. The crew encountered windshear warnings on landing, and the aircraft impacted the runway three times, with the second impact being 5.85Gs, and the third near 5Gs. The third is when the fuselage damage and fire occurred.

www.flightglobal.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58
And the aircraft flight controls were in direct law just to add to the inconvenience, plus there was a 30kt crosswind to contend with. I actually think the flight crew did a pretty damn good job all things considered. Its just unfortunate that there were so many complications that ended up getting on top of them. I'm also pretty impressed by the aircraft structure itself. It took a 2G initial bounce followed by 2 more that well exceeded 5G each. I suspect a lot of other aircraft would have disintegrated taking that kind of punishment.

a reply to: thebozeian

The structure stood up really well considering the beating. That's a testament to the engineers. All of the crew did an outstanding job as well, considering the beating they took in the landing too.

The crew may have attempted to go around after the first bounce. After the aircraft, the Captain activated full reverse thrust. The doors didn't activate, due to a lack of weight on the WOW switch. After the aircraft touched the runway a second time, the doors began to activate. During the second bounce, the Captain advanced the throttles to full power. The engines failed to respond to the command however.

www.flightglobal.com...

Imagine going from Drive at 100mphr to reverse in a car then try get it back into Drive!!! its a wonder the engines didnt blow.

The Captain is being charged for violating aviation regulations.