Flydubai Boeing Crash

Flydubai’s Boeing 737-800 passenger jet crashed in Rostov-on-Don, overnight on March 19. 62 people were killed as a result of the plane crash.

Severe weather conditions were immediately named as the main reason of crash, though, the majority of experts believe, the aircraft’s crash could not be attributed only to the weather conditions.

In this text ‘Meduza‘ brings together the key questions related to the aircraft crash that are still to be answered.

Why did not the plane chose an alternate airfield?

From the philistine point of view, it seems to be the most logical solution: if there are challenging weather conditions in one airport, you can choose another. In case of Rostov this turn of events seems to be even more justified because there are lots of airports around just at few minutes’ flight. It will take one less than an hour to fly to Mineralnie Vody or Krasnodar, whereas the Boeing was flying over Rostov-on-Don for about two hours.

Every time it’s a pilot, who decides on whether to land the plane or not. It is noteworthy that just 10 minutes before the Boeing took its first landing attempt, the Urals Airlines Airbus A320 had landed at first attempt, at the same airport in Rostov-on-Don.

At the same time, the Aeroflot aircraft that was landing when the Boeing was making already its third attempt to land, had flown to the alternate airfield.

Denis Okan, ‘Globe’ airlines instructor pilot, who, himself, flies on Boeing 737, wrote in his blog, that pilots are usually reluctant to land at alternate airfields. ‘One is always willing to land at the destination airport – it makes less problems for both, the passengers arriving on that flight, as well as those, who will take the next flight on same plane,’ he points out.

At the same time, Okan noted that the crashed aircraft pilot’s decision not to land at the alternate airfield has nothing to do with Flydubai being a low-coster. In Okan’s words, pilots never think of economizing when coming in for landing: the main thing is to finish the flight landing safe.

An answer to the question, why the pilot still decided to once again attempt landing in Rostov-on-Don, will probably appear after decoding of the black boxes.

What happened in the last minutes of flight?

Flightradar service data show that at 3:40:54 a.m., the aircraft, that was flying at a speed of 234km/h, drifted down to 480 meters, afterwards it increased its speed and at 3:41:37 a.m. reached an altitude of up to 1,2km – and the speed there made 343km/h.

According to the TASS source, the Boeing pilot was making the third landing attempt. At that very moment something went wrong and the plane crashed. The plane wing did not touch the runway, as the Emergency Situations Ministry had initially reported.

‘Relatively small wreckage dispersion radius, as well as their small size prove that the plane was falling at a high speed – over 400 km/h. Even the most durable parts of the plane – the undercarriage and magnesium plates, crashed into pieces,’ the agency interlocutor reported. This speed assessment almost coincides with the Flightradar data.

Why did the plane crash almost vertically?

Just a few hours after the incident, the severe weather conditions were believed to be one of the main versions of the plane crash. According to Evgeny Tishkovets, a meteorologist, the pilot could have lost control of the aircraft due to a strong gust of wind.

‘He most likely got into a ‘streaming flow’. Generally, in normal operation mode, pilots try to avoid it by going slightly left or right, up or down, but there are horizontal line deflection angles, beyond which the craft shall not go, or otherwise it will turn into a tin can. In such a situation, the wind abruptly lifts the plane nose up or moves to a wing, causing a stall and the plane falls down,’ Tishkovets reported.

Yet, poor weather conditions alone could hardly explain the circumstances of the aircraft crash. ‘The weather was severe. But it was not unsurmountable. Such weather does not require closing the airport and is hardly an obstacle for a landing attempt’ – Alexey Gervash, a pilot, wrote on his Facebook page.

Denis Okan, ‘Globe’ airlines instructor pilot, draws attention to the fact that the reason can be icing, that the crew might not have seen – it could greatly complicate the aircraft control process in severe weather conditions.

Besides, as Okan noted, ‘a picture’ of Boeing’s crash in Rostov-on-Don is similar to that of Kazan Boing crash. According to the IAC’s official investigation, aircraft crashed in Tatarstan in 2013 due to an unexperienced pilot’s error, who pulled the control wheel, though that should not have been done.

The nature of human desire to pull the control wheel is well described by Jeff Weiss, a pilot. However, one should not claim yet that it was a human factor that caused the plane’s vertical crash.

Published on 21.03.2016