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Subscribe to RSSMOUNT SALAK, Indonesia -- Clearer weather finally allowed Indonesian helicopters to land Saturday and retrieve some remains of the 45 people aboard a Russian-made plane that crashed into a volcano during a demonstration flight.
Investigators still have found no sign of the black box recorder that might explain why the new Sukhoi Superjet-100 slammed into Mount Salak about halfway through a 50-minute flight intended to woo potential Indonesian airline buyers on Wednesday.
Search teams who climbed the dormant volcano's near-vertical slopes have been struggling to retrieve remains of the victims, and helicopters were unable to land because of thick fog shrouding the mountain about 50 miles southwest of Jakarta, the capital. All those aboard the flight are now presumed dead, and the plane's shredded wreckage is scattered around the dense jungle.
Helicopters brought four body bags with remains to Jakarta early Saturday morning for identification, search and rescue agency spokesman Gagah Prakoso said.
"We also have deployed a team to find the black box, but so far it had yet found," Prakoso said.
Col. Anton Chastila, a police forensic doctor in Jakarta, said his team has received the remains, adding it was unclear how many victims they represent.
About 60 forensic experts will sort through the body parts piece by piece and take DNA samples to identify them, Chastila said.
Indonesian rescuers find bodies near wreckage of jet that 'fell' from sky
Wednesday's demonstration — locally known as a "joy flight" — was mostly carrying representatives from Indonesian airlines, which are rapidly expanding to serve a burgeoning middle class in the sprawling archipelago where air travel between islands is a quicker alternative to ferries.
Just 21 minutes after takeoff from a Jakarta airfield, the Russian pilot and co-pilot asked for permission to drop from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet. They gave no explanation, disappearing from the radar immediately afterward.
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It was not clear why the crew asked to shift course, especially since they were so close to the 7,000-foot volcano, officials have said.
The Superjet is Russia's first new model of passenger jet since the fall of the Soviet Union two decades ago and was intended to help resurrect its aerospace industry.
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As usual with airliners that crashed on the ground human remains are being recovered. So, what happened on 911 ?????. Why was there no remains recovered in PA. or at the Pentigon????.
Because they were completely incenerated.
because they didn't crash on the ground, they hit the pentagon at high speed that then collasped and caught fire on top of them with thousands of tons of debris............geez what a tard. They did recover body parts in PA.
It always amazes me that conspitacy theorists actually believe that they are smarter than the people they accuse of conspiracies. I guess that thinkking gets pretty narrow when your whole world is a tralier park and an internet connection.
Come on, be nice. 7.62x- they are all alive and living in the south of France, sipping wine by the sea. Rosie Odonell told me ; )
"Chris-749391" A total idiot assumes the rest of the world is only as smart as them. A total idiot has no concept of someone being smarter than them. Their tiny brain wont process on that high a level. LMAO
7.62mm - if you had ever read the news in the years following 9/11, you'd have read that they continued to find small fragments of bone remains on tops of buildings hundreds of feet from Ground Zero. And in PA and the Pentagon, there were only small fragments of bone found as well. The human body is over 90% water. When a body impacts something at 400-500mph, especially while strapped inside a thin-skinned tube, there won't be much left.
Also, keep in mind that the particular airplanes that were selected for the 9/11 attacks were chosen specifically because they had very large AND full fuel tanks, so that there would be a lot more fire than would have occurred if they had crashed a 737 or 747.
Honestly. Ignorance can be taught, but stupid is to the bone.
So, do you believe too, that the manned moon landings were faked? You know, there are foolish people of whom believe that to be the case. Although orbiters now clearly image the landing sites, vehicles, and Human activity sights on the moon. Yet still, the stupid just don't get it.
Your comment goes under the category of JFK was killed by unknown assassins hiding behind a wooden fence in Dallas. Well, I've visited that sight, and there's simply no way.
Research, research, research. Otherwise, make a fool of oneself.
Anyone who has a definitive notion of anything is sadly just as erroneous. You may disagree, but you're only speaking from this heightened arrogance that firmly exerts itself from fear; fear of possibly being wrong. For isn't gravity just a theory that you would assumptively hold as "fact." Let down your wall of comfort and insecurities, your dogmas, question what is known and in turn question that! You mustn't succumb by way of others thoughts and hinder your own true intellect and inquiry. Moreover, when the truth finally comes out from hiding, no post's will be present, for its essence cannot be found through language.
There were remains found, but they were accidentally sent to a landfill.
A new Pentagon report reveals that partial remains of some 9/11 victims were sent to a landfill after they could not be identified. The victims were among ...
www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/portions... - C
Trying to answer your questions would be a waste of time. You're not looking for answers, there are NO answers to satisfy people like you.
Airbus tried a demo like this but most passengers survived.
So did they order any planes?
These weren't liberal Americans on board. Although we probably ordered some with the stimulus bill.
Do these black boxes not have gps transmitters in them?
Ryan-461484,I am sure the jet was well equipped with navigation gear, it's a huge mystery if they didn't know they were near a high peak. My theory, and I wasn't there in the cockpit so this is just a wild guess on my part, is that they may have been in some clouds or weather, and since it was a demonstration flight they wanted to go lower to get out of it so the passengers would have a better view or maybe a less bumpy ride. The same lack of visibility, though, would mean they wouldn't be able to see the ground or the mountainside until they were too close to get away from it. This is a tragedy, and from what is being said looks like it will sadly be filed as error on someone's part. Of course there are a lot of navigation instruments and other gear to look at and I am sure they will. This is a very high profile plane for the Russians, and a lot of higher ups from Indonesia and Russia were aboard.
It could also be that there was an instrument failure, but the request to change altitude has me thinking they just wanted to get out of some clouds or weather, and ran into the terrain when they tried to do that.
@David Powell
Its well equipped and has completely current avionics. It's a full glass cockpit for flight avionics and engine management. Several of the systems suppliers are American corporations and Boeing is listed as a consultant for the flight systems.
Half price sale going on right now!
Does every tragedy in the world have to be compared to 911??? America is not the only country who has seen the horrors of terrorist activities ya know. My heart breaks everytime I think of 911 and Pearl Harbor but they happened and now all we can do is move on with life and pray for those we lost but we do not have to discuss it every single time a foreign plane crashes, boat sinks or a cute furry creature is mauled by a Mountain Lion! This incident has nothing to do with 911!
Why did they request to descend to 6000 feet with a mountain in front of them?
they were making an "alla akbar" run.
That is what I would like to know also!!
I, too, would like to know that. If I remember correctly, under instrument flying conditions, which is evidently what that bird had, in the United States, an aircraft is supposed to maintain an altitude at least 2,000 feet higher than the highest point of land within 25 nautical miles (28.5 or so statute miles) of the flight-planned track. With a 10,000 foot planned altitude, and mountains to 7500 feet, it makes no sense to descend to 6000 feet - unless you're under radar control on approach to the field, which apparently they weren't. Unless ...
The US isn't a very good indicator of flying conditions in the rest of the world. Several South American airports have very interesting flight path requirements in order to land and depart. Following US Flat Lander rules would mean there would be no airports unless they were on bulldozer leveled mountain tops with rather steep dropoffs on either end.
Maybe another situation like the capsized cruise boat where the captain wanted to do a fly-by to give the passengers a closer look of the mountain? I hope not...
Rest in peace to all those aboard that aircraft. They never saw it coming!
i saw a video taken in a mall in indoneisa of something that looked like a winged angel my son said it looked like mothman im wondering its really strange
Instant obliteration, just add volcano and Russian jet.
The jungle will find and process the victims if the searchers don't.
We all need to be mindful that every day could easily be the last. One minute, a state of normalcy, the next millisecond, hash.
MSNBC and all other news organizations should discontinue the use of references involving the phrase " fell from the sky." This term did not come from any knowledgeable witness or investigator. The term probably came, second-hand, from someone holding some official title, but more than likely, "fell from the sky" is a clumsy translation of an Indonesian idiom. It is true that there is gravity in Indonesia, and it is true that that particular Sukhoi Superjet is no longer up in the sky, but "fell from the sky" is not a useful chunk of information to be dishing out to people who have an appetite for knowledge of this event. Sometimes aircraft do, indeed appear to just fall out of the sky. Sometimes something scatters them all over the sky before they fall, sometimes they fall, intact and mostly mechanically perfect right up until the instant they run out of altitude. There are many aircraft accident investigations on-line, in English. Though they are sometimes long and sometimes extremely technical, they are fascinating examples of excruciatingly accurate thinking, evidence-gathering, and documentation.
The proper terms would be
A) "controlled flight into terrain" the airplane was functioning normally without failure, and pilot error due to ignoring instruments, TAWS and radar, or simply following the instruments but making too wide a turn, flew into a mountainside.
B) "uncontrolled flight into terrain" the airplane suffered some sort of structural or flight control system failure that allowed it to go out of control and crash.
C) "structural failure" something broke off the aircraft causing marginally controllable or uncontrolled flight. Loss of a tail surface, engine departing the aircraft, flight control surface, depressurization are various failure modes.
D) "catastrophic structural failure" something happened to cause the aircraft to break up before impact. Flight 800's fuel tank fume explosion was one such type of accident.
B can cause a dive which is still flight, but in the wrong direction and with gravity assist.
C has caused uncontrolled Slit-S type dives into terrain.
Only D causes falling from the sky as it disrupts the aircraft's ability to fly.
If the mountain was 7,000 feet & they descended a tad below 6,000 feet that might be a problem! Perhaps they had a MINOR issue onboard & dropped down so people could breathe & hit the mountain. Flying in an unfimilliar area can do that to you.
Did they make the sale?
In an intensive search for the black box, they might uncover Obamas real birth certificate.
idiot
Can we leave Obama and all the other Political Tossers out of this????
I think Mitt was pulling another one of his pranks on the pilot.........couldn't resist.
I think Russia should just stay out of the Aerospace business in general. Their track record isn't entirely the greatest.
MikeyG39
If they do, than how do you propose to get back your US crew from the Space Station?
Do not forget, the Russians were in the space before you.
Good idea, then the US wouldn't need to be building JSF F-35s at huge cost overruns, hmm wait a minute, they have to worry about the Chinese who've already got terabyes of information on that program and probably can build the darn things at much reduced cost.
MiG, Sukhoi, Tupolev, et. al. have been the standard against which Hammerican war planes have needed to be built. It's the whole reason B-1, B-2, F-22, F-35 aircraft have to exist.
And the Russians are what's keeping the space station up there. NASA's out of the running and ESA has other and often better things to be doing than stuffing humans into space.
Given the track record, following your reasoning, MikeyG39, the US needs to get out of Aerospace as well.
Given the shuttle failures, Delta rocket failures, Boeing's long and awful birthing of the Dreamliner and the series of systemic failures that created the delays (fastener procurement, procurement of the wrong fasteners leading to needs to retrofit, installing the wrong fasteners causing the airframes to be suspect, design failures that caused the wings to fail under stress test, the list goeth on...), the long and awful birthing of F-35 with all the overruns leaving us depending on F-15s which are starting to have airframe fatigue failures and the F-22 which currently is mysteriously poisoning its ground crews and pilots (hypoxia, anoxia or something else?)
But we keep going on, just as the Russians will. Yes, it actually is Rocket Science and there are new things to learn, and because there are new things to learn, there will be some areas of rough going when it comes to making things a success.
lol bet this crash will woo away any potential buyers of this crappy aircraft ! stick with boeing aircraft !
The Russians have produced some fine commercial aircraft such as the TU-134 which is still flying today. So don't jump to conclusions. Remember the Boeing 737 that locked its stablilzer fin and crashed? Or the 747 that crashed in N.Y.C. due to faulty wiring design that ignited the fuel tanks? This Sukoi accident could possibly be pilot error because there was no reason to descend to 6000 ft with the mountain standing at 7K ft. This leads me to believe they just wanted to get a closer look at the volcano for their guest's pleasure. Unfortunately, they caught the updraft of the mountain, or the downdraft (windward vs. leeward) which in either case, slammed them into the mountain (while descending below the summit) or sucked them into the mountain while skirting around the mountain. Near-vertical monoliths and peaks are nothing to be trifiled with when in close proximity during flying. Eddy currents and microbursts are prevalent in this uneven terrain.
Boeing servs as a consultant to Sukhoi on this aircraft. You might want to rethink that opinion if you run your life on such Knee-Jerk reactions.
Spell check folks. Your faux education from the US Department of Education is showing.
russian jet and crew - i am impressed they made it that far.
The term "Joy flight" I read in the Article has the same chilling connotation to the automobile accidents I read in the Local paper when a "Joy Ride" also results in Fatalities. I feel bad for the Loved ones who have to go through this and will remember them in my prayers.
America has plenty of stimulus from former Soviet Union advances in fighters, transports and helicopters. If you talk to airforce people with long service, they will tell you, the Soviets pushed US to make better war machines many times.
Patriotism is a wonderful thing, but only a fool is blinded, deafened by it.
MiG, Sukhoi, Tupolev... The reason why we needed the F-4, F-14, F-15, F-117, F-22, F-35, B-52, B-1, B-2 et. al.
There were no other creditable competitors out there.
They must have been taking a vodka break. If the pilot would have not been chasing the stewardess
around the plane ?
Damn Sasquatch.
So, was it:
A) Flight control/propulsion system failure?
B) TAWS system failure/insufficient TAWS data for the area?
C) Pilots showing off, making a miscalculation and accidentally encountering granite clouds?
D) Pilots distracted, ignored TAWS system warnings, tried to bore a hole through a volcano?
I suspect the important words were:
"Hey, look guys, how close I can fly by the ridge"
Which pretty much killed Wheeler Express. Pilot stunt on a flight to a major airshow killed all on board, created bad PR for a rather good aircraft design and bankrupted the company.
Build it and they will come Commrade ! NYET!!!!
Hope they find the black box and fifure out what really happened. Or were they going to connect that up next week?