Well the commonality is that they have their accidents with their older technology and we have ours with more modern technology. Outcomes in either case are tragic.

Once again proving we have more in common than not, as the ruling elites would like us serfs to believe. RIP...

Yeah, this would suck if true. Hydraulic problem, burn holes in the sky sorting it out, weather goes to shit while you are doing that and now you have no good options left.

And I bet flying a no-flap approach in that beast is a little sporty on a good day. Plus it looks like that runway was covered in snow, giving almost zero visual reference when they broke out. What a shit sandwich for those guys.

If they did have hydraulic issue, it's unlikely they'd have retained underwing stores.

Malfunctions, abnormals, emergencies, weather...are all things that are trained for. It's part of the job of flying the aircraft and working it. There are procedures for each problem, and those come with speeds, configurations, and all other details in a handy dandy checklist format, and these things are all part of training.

Tragic for sure.If hydraulic/flap failure is true,landing speed probably 200 KTS. Considering as previously mentioned
it likely had older avionics ( Steam Gauges) it would have been quite a challenge.Photo shows the pilot seat gone, not
sure about Co-Pilot seat due picture quality but appears at least some of the crew ejected.When I worked in Russia I saw
a TU up close,its a beast for sure,the closer you get the uglier they get,but,that doesn't they cant get the job done.
BTY, the Russians have very good ejection seats, even in older aircraft

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
If they did have hydraulic issue, it's unlikely they'd have retained underwing stores.

Malfunctions, abnormals, emergencies, weather...are all things that are trained for. It's part of the job of flying the aircraft and working it. There are procedures for each problem, and those come with speeds, configurations, and all other details in a handy dandy checklist format, and these things are all part of training.

Yeah, not arguing here, but you are assuming Western standards. "Giving it back to the taxpayers" was always an option in the US Mil, but not so much in other countries. So keeping those stores on the wing might be how they were trained.

And that brings me to training...I know that checklists are available, but when you are doing a no-flap and it says "minimize the flare to avoid floating"...that is great. But how many times have these guys done that in an accurate sim? I'm guessing zero.

Not saying that it WAS a no-flap, but if it was I bet it was the first these guys ever tried, and in shitty conditions.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
Obviously they had some fuel onboard but you have to wonder if they boxed themselves in with no suitable divert or no fuel to get to one.

I have BTDT, got the t-shirt and been in an aircraft shooting a PAR & self contained (but not approved) aircraft radar approach to below minimums with no other options; it's no fun sucking the seat cushion up your ass.

Agreed. That seemed to be a “must land” situation. Terrible.

I’ve BTDT as well recovering in terrible weather in Korea that was “officially” right at minimums. With low fuel and no viable alternatives it was a must land situation. Thankfully was able to keep feeding in nozzles and decelerate slower and slower and basically air taxi until I broke out beside the runway at 60’. Sucked up a lot of seat cushion on that approach.

quote:

Originally posted by furlough:

Not saying that it WAS a no-flap, but if it was I bet it was the first these guys ever tried, and in shitty conditions.

It's impossible to say and we'll most likely never learn additional details about this, or at least most won't, which is unfortunate. There's always something to be learned.

If they were flying a precision approach, flying below minimums isn't much different than flying to minimums. If they were on a radar assist, that's different and not nearly as accurate or easy to fly, especially in extremely low weather. I used to fly them into Mosul and other places, especially in low weather in dust storms, and usually used my own guidance and considered the PAR backup...and a US PAR is going to be considerably better than a russian counterpart.

Most russian equipment that I've seen, especially older equipment, but also some much newer aircraft, has crude and limited capability in terms of instrumentation and nav. A lot of it is tired, archaic. The aircraft are rough, raised rivets, and never tires that don't show cord.

We were parked next to an IL76 a few years ago in Afghanistan, and was invited by the crew to tour their aircraft after they came and looked at ours. The aircraft was fairly new, in regular operation. The most advanced piece of navigational equipment on board wasn't even accessible to the crew; I had to get on my knees and crawl to the nav area where one might expect a bombardier to be, and it was above the crawl space, facing forward, nearly hidden; an antique KLN90B...something we had in light airplanes, but that's very outdated. That was the peak of it's capability.

Between doing everything in meters, mm for altimeters, and QFE (field elevation zero reference for altimetry) in Russia, as well as old equipment, and tired equipment, they do tend to stack the deck against themselves.

I'm sure this wasn't the crew's first go-around with an emergency, an abnormal configuration, a low approach, or that location, and was probably closer to a normal day than not. At least up until the end.

sns3guppy, is QFE such a bad thing? I flew in Britain for a bit and while setting the altimeter to QFE (the altimeter setting that will cause your altimeter to read 0 on the runway) instead of the QNH (which is the only thing we use here, at least below FL180), always landing at zero “elevation” did take some of the math out of the equation. Curious...

Ever wonder why most of the world doesn't do it? combine it with often questionable data in Russia, what can best be described as a lax approach to a lot of things, altimeters reading in meters, old equipment, cold weather (and associated altimetry issues), etc, then yes. It can be.

I don't do QFE when in Russia, but QNH, triple check the conversions, and take nothing for granted.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:

an antique KLN90B

GPS navigators started to see widespread use in General Aviation aircraft in the 1990s. The KLN90 series had the dubious distinction of being the most puzzling GPS unit that I have ever used, in terms of which buttons to push and which knobs to turn, to get the desired information.

As far as instrument approach capability, I don't think that they were ever upgraded to precision approach (WAAS with vertical guidance). Every one that I ever used, or instructed with, provided non-precision approaches -- think Localizer, as opposed to full ILS.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
The KLN90 series had the dubious distinction of being the most puzzling GPS unit that I have ever used, in terms of which buttons to push and which knobs to turn, to get the desired information.

As far as instrument approach capability, I don't think that they were ever upgraded to precision approach (WAAS with vertical guidance). Every one that I ever used, or instructed with, provided non-precision approaches -- think Localizer, as opposed to full ILS.

The KLN89 and 90 were both GPS and LoRaN radios, even as long range was dying on the vine, and while I did use one in a lear 24 (woefully inadequate, couldn't keep up with the speed), they belonged in light, small aircraft. We used them in C-130's, P4Y's, even P2's, but they were confusing, and not meant for fast equipment. Certainly not like the 4-engine transport jet IL76...where it was the most advanced piece of equipment on board.

There was a device in a chamber aft of the flight deck which looked like something from the original star trek. Big, cartoonishly large square buttons, like an old Mattel electronic family game or something (this was a nav compute system that did E6B type functions). My First Officer, who couldn't keep his trap shut, rattled off something about how funny it was, and asked just how old this antique was, that the Russians flew. The captain, a very grizzled veteran of a lot of Afghan and global operations, politely replied that the airplane was new...