Airbus A321 Crashes in Sinai

[TenEightyOne]

There are reports that a Russian A321 crashed 23 minutes after take-off from Sharm el-Sheikh with the loss of all on board.

The host of FlightTracker24 say that the plane's speed in the climb dropped to 62kias before it fell.

BBC.

 

[Robin]

There were reports of voices being heard from under the wreckage, also that it was passing through an area with militant fighting going on.

Also the crew had repeatedly reported having engine trouble with this plane in the days before the flight, they were having problems getting them started on multiple occasions but this was looked at by technicians.

 

[Rage Racer]

Three possible causes:

1. Mechanical failure
2. Terrorist act (bomb on board)
3. Shot down by a missile (less likely).

 

[TenEightyOne]

Three possible causes:

1. Mechanical failure
2. Terrorist act (bomb on board)
3. Shot down by a missile (less likely).

#1 seems the most likely, particularly as there are reports of recent technical problems to do with the engines.

I see from the link that the Russian authorities have "opened a criminal investigation", is that normal practice in such events or do they already suspect specific negligence and/or foul play? I know that in Italy this would now be a murder inquiry by default, I have no idea if Russia is the same.

 

[Rage Racer]

#1 seems the most likely, particularly as there are reports of recent technical problems to do with the engines.

I see from the link that the Russian authorities have "opened a criminal investigation", is that normal practice in such events or do they already suspect specific negligence and/or foul play? I know that in Italy this would now be a murder inquiry by default, I have no idea if Russia is the same.

Yes, this is a normal practice in Russia in such cases. Plus they suspect terrorism...

 

[Dennisch]

IS is claiming that they shot it down.

Russian invasion of Egypt coming up?

Also, no survivors have been found.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Lufthansa and Air France are to cease flights over the area. As @Dennisch just said IS (or allies of IS) claim to have shot the plane down. For now the Russian Transport Minister is saying that there's no evidence of that.

EDIT: Here's the climb profile; not really conclusive of anything (I'd initially thought it looked like a power-off stall), this graph doesn't demonstrate that one way or the other. There's no heading data on here though.

Reports from the crash site suggest that the tail (or more of the aft section) was separated from the rest of the plane. By how far isn't clear - if it's a long way then that suggests an in-flight break-up.

There's no word yet on if there was a mayday call.

 

[mister dog]

IS is claiming that they shot it down.

Russian invasion of Egypt coming up?

Also, no survivors have been found.

So they posses surface to air missiles then? Plane was shot down at 30.000 feet if i read that graph correctly.
Bit of a blunder of their PR department there.

 

[TenEightyOne]

So they posses surface to air missiles then? Plane was shot down at 30.000 feet if i read that graph correctly.
Bit of a blunder of their PR department there.

Yes, they do, only MANPAD though... not enough to take it out at that altitude. Jihadists will claim to have shot down anything that falls from the sky.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Is that sharp climb from 30k to 33-34k feet normal? Seems odd.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Is that sharp climb from 30k to 33-34k feet normal? Seems odd.

It depends if that's what happened, at that altitude they're using Standard barometry to gauge height, that's what's passed through the transponder (and therefore onto that graph) rather than an accurate radar-altitude return. Strange altitude changes can therefore appear dependent on atmospheric conditions... that said the weather seems to have been good and constant.

The strange thing here is that as the speed dropped the altitude apparently increased - if the plane was in full control and there was an engine failure you'd expect the pilots to maintain a constant altitude or even begin a gentle nose-down glide. I wonder if there was something big that happened to one of the engines... unless, of course, something was taken aboard to deliberately explode.

 

[Dennisch]

Any news available about how large the debris field is?

 

[TenEightyOne]

Any news available about how large the debris field is?

Not that I can find. At this point I'd think that the tail section came down as part of an intact (or mostly intact) plane, the damage to it really isn't very severe. I'd guess that it's in the same debris field. The speed with which bodies are being collected also suggests a fairly localised crash site.

Here's an incident whose recorded parameters might be similar to the beginning of this incident; errors in Angle of Attack information feature quite strongly. In this case the Lufthansa plane was allowed to switch to Alternate Law control (the secondary 'emergency' phase of the flight envelope management systems).

http://avherald.com/h?article=47d74074/0000

 

[Dennisch]

So we can, as it seems now, rule out any in air explosion or break up.

 

[TenEightyOne]

So we can, as it seems now, rule out any in air explosion or break up.

Depends on the type/location of the explosion (or other severe interruption), but it looks pretty likely that the tail didn't come down alone.

 

[Dennisch]

Depends on the type/location of the explosion (or other severe interruption), but it looks pretty likely that the tail didn't come down alone.

Both recorders have been found btw. So that should make the investigation a lot easier.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Both recorders have been found btw. So that should make the investigation a lot easier.

Egypt are implying that no external influence in the crash is suspected.

First crash site photos from lifenews.ru, looks like a wing. Intact but very burnt... I think the plane came down fast but intact. The fact that the wing looks complete coupled with the relatively undamaged tail (flattened underneath and broken off) makes me think that a controlled landing may have been attempted in the final moments.

Spoiler

I don't know this site and I don't know what kind of photos they might update the story with. Currently it's all suitable for GTP.

http://lifenews.ru/news/167363[/quote]

 

[TenEightyOne]

Despite earlier reports that the plane had made a request to return to the airport officials now say that this wasn't the case and that no SOS call was received.

 

[Rage Racer]

Reportedly, there were two Ukrainian and one Belarusian citizen on board, the rest were RF citizens.

IS is claiming that they shot it down.

Russian invasion of Egypt coming up?

Also, no survivors have been found.

The terrorists sure would proudly credit this "fine work" to themselves.
But the reality is, a bungle in the Russian civilian aviation is a lot more serious threat than any "Islamic states".

 

[Swagger897]

Is that sharp climb from 30k to 33-34k feet normal? Seems odd.

I'd have to say no.

In a 757, regarded as one of the best climbing jets ever produced in commercial aviation, they normally climb at a rate under 1,000 feet per minute at altitudes above FL270 to prevent a massive drop off of speed and air flow over the wings (ie, a stall). Here, it's 2,500 fpm, in an airplane that doesn't have the best engines for climbs of that nature.

FL300 for that flight is also a tad bit low, but could've been restricted by ATC due to other aircraft. Maybe they were going to step climb, and that was the beginning, but I too see 2500 fpm as too much for a high altitude climb.

 

[polysmut]

But the reality is, a bungle in the Russian civilian aviation is a lot more serious threat than any "Islamic states".

I have questions about that statement but I'm not convinced they'd be useful to this thread.

Can I just ask "to whom?" & hopefully we won't get in the way of new relevant information that people post.

Edit: I've just realised a possible interpretation error & I think I'm now reading your post differently to how I did at first. Apologies for the distraction if I'm just making reading errors.

Were you just saying that a bungle was more likely than an attack from IS?

 

[TenEightyOne]

In a 757, regarded as one of the best climbing jets ever produced in commercial aviation, they normally climb at a rate under 1,000 feet per minute at altitudes above FL270 to prevent a massive drop off of speed and air flow over the wings (ie, a stall). Here, it's 2,500 fpm, in an airplane that doesn't have the best engines for climbs of that nature.

FL300 for that flight is also a tad bit low, but could've been restricted by ATC due to other aircraft. Maybe they were going to step climb, and that was the beginning, but I too see 2500 fpm as too much for a high altitude climb.

It depends on the cost index for the flight and the circumstances, if they had some emergency they wanted to climb above they could do it, there's plenty of spare power. Normally they climb as quickly as possible as that's the cheapest route to cruise and, as you note, they step-climb at higher alts. An A321 could still manage 2000 fpm at that altitude (dependent on balance and load), but this one seems like it was pretty full.

Still, to make a climb you need the tail intact, despite some newspapers saying this morning that it fell off during the flight I really don't think that's the case.

 

[wfooshee]

I have questions about that statement but I'm not convinced they'd be useful to this thread.

Can I just ask "to whom?" & hopefully we won't get in the way of new relevant information that people post.

Edit: I've just realised a possible interpretation error & I think I'm now reading your post differently to how I did at first. Apologies for the distraction if I'm just making reading errors.

Were you just saying that a bungle was more likely than an attack from IS?

I read it as saying a bungle is a more serious threat because a much larger number of aircraft would be involved if the maintenance and records-keeping in the RF are not up to standards. If shortcuts are being taken, up to and including corruption and bribes to skip expensive maintenance and repair, then that would be a VERY serious threat to the safety of the Russian airliner fleet.

No one is saying that must be the cause, but if such a condition exists, the IS threat is nothing in comparison.

 

[TenEightyOne]

So we can, as it seems now, rule out any in air explosion or break up.

I'd thought so... reports today point much more clearly to a break-up or blowout;

Egyptian officials said the perimeter for the search for bodies and debris had been widened to 15km.

Some bodies had been recovered within a radius of 5km on Saturday, and that of a three-year-old girl was found 8km from the scene, they added.

That clearly suggests a very high-altitude ejection of some of the aircraft contents. The strange thing is that I still think that's massively at odds with the relatively low damage to the tail section and the fact that at least one wing, while burnt out, appears otherwise intact and in shape on the ground.

BBC.

EDIT: Looking at more crash photos as they become available it's possible for the tail section to be that intact as part of a much larger section forward of it. That would fall at like a dart with the tail "feathers" highermost... that's the only way I can think of that the tail itself wouldn't be completely destroyed as it hits the ground.

For that to happen the aircraft effectively has to have split in two at altitude

 

[mister dog]

Wouldn't surprise me if an insider at the airport smuggled a bomb inside.

Edit: Belgian news says the plane was damaged due to a tailstrike in 2001. It needed big repairs and apparently there's a plate in that area that controls cabin pressure. If that plate was overlooked it would have been a disaster waiting to happen, because a failure of that plate would rip the plane apart.

 

[Liquid]

That's reminiscent of JAL 123. Tailstrike damage leading to a long-delay fatigue and explosive decompression.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Edit: Belgian news says the plane was damaged due to a tailstrike in 2001. It needed big repairs and apparently there's a plate in that area that controls cabin pressure. If that plate was overlooked it would have been a disaster waiting to happen, because a failure of that plate would rip the plane apart.

That's reminiscent of JAL 123. Tailstrike damage leading to a long-delay fatigue and explosive decompression.

If the tailstrike/significant-repair story is true then yes, that's definitely a worry. The lessons (supposedly) learned from JAL123 should make accidents like that impossible nowadays, of course...

EDIT: Russian authorities now confirm that they suspect a mid-flight break-up.

 

[Blitz24]

If the tailstrike/significant-repair story is true then yes, that's definitely a worry. The lessons (supposedly) learned from JAL123 should make accidents like that impossible nowadays, of course...

Wasn't JAL123 the one that stayed airborne for about 30 minutes after losing the tail before crashing into a mountain?

 

[numbnuts70]

Another mossad false flag designed to goad the Russians?

Link

link

 

[Liquid]

Wasn't JAL123 the one that stayed airborne for about 30 minutes after losing the tail before crashing into a mountain?

It was, but the principle is that a faulty tailstrike repair could lead to an explosive decompression. The decompression could be enough to instantly rip through the plane or not. Depends on whatever the circumstances and variables are.