Comments on: Russian Plane Crashes

By: Roberts

Roberts — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 20:03:57 +0000

Hmmmm, superb Russian pilots? Perhaps, but I recall a few years ago there was a crash of a Russian airliner where the investigation revealed that the pilot had allowed his son into the cockpit to play with the controls.

By: thibaud

thibaud — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 18:04:34 +0000

Aeroflot’s service on transatlantic flights is now as good or better than that of its western competitors. I’ve flown both Aeroflot and Delta to Moscow about a dozen times in the last 7 years and I’d happily fly Aeroflot instead of Delta today.

As for the Tupolevs, maintenance is the big problem, not design or piloting. They’re said to be far more stable in foul weather than either Boeing or Airbus planes. Also, the pilots are generally superb. But service on domestic routes still sucks.

By: mwalls

mwalls — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 16:09:38 +0000

I suspect that the Tupolev’s maintenance is not an issue, otherwise the Russians would be losing them in quantity. If we maintained 737’s the way the Russians maintain their Tupolev’s, we’d be having Congressional Hearings & criminal charges. Russian hardware is generally designed to function with poor maintenance (at least from my reading).

By: hollywood

hollywood — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 15:10:54 +0000

The maintenance records would appear to be critical. Sounds like a coincidence, but could it be poor maintenance on 2 planes with too many cycles?

By: Cybrludite

Cybrludite — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 08:32:43 +0000

Couple a hundred miles between them, so the only thing they would have collided with mid-air would be something fired by the PVO.

By: John Moore ( Useful Fools )

John Moore ( Useful Fools ) — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 04:40:38 +0000

This early it’s always hard to tell what’s happening. Also be aware that every major airplane that ever crashed had at least one witness saying it blew up in flight or was on fire. This happened with flight 93. It’s an odd human phenomenon – few aircraft suffer in-flight fires or explosions.

With Russia, expect the early rumors and inside sources to be especially flaky, and the authorities may be very quiet or make up an alternate explanation.

Since they both took off from the same plane, bombs or hijackers make sense. The first one crashed pretty quickly for a hijack. It isn’t clear how long the second flew.

My best guess: terrorism. However, we don’t know the weather, whether in fact there was no mid-air collision, what the radars saw, whether the aircraft had functioning altitude encoding transponders, etc.

At least these planes didn’t have a lot of people on board. Let’s hope they weren’t shot down by MANPADS!

By: Thom

Thom — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 04:17:57 +0000

The second plane was en route to the same city where Putin is currently vacationing.

By: bkw

bkw — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 04:16:15 +0000

How can Kerry and the Swifites remembr thngs that happened in 1968 and I can’t remember the name of an airline I flew a year ago February.

That’s because the memory wasn’t seared — seared! — in your mind!

Sorry … sorry … I’ll stop now …

By: Mark Poling

Mark Poling — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 04:06:49 +0000

Report: Russian Jet Sent Hijack Signal

MOSCOW (AP) – A Russian airliner crashed and a second disappeared from radar about the same time Tuesday night after both planes took off from the same Moscow airport, raising fears that terrorism was involved.

The Russian news agency Interfax reported that a hijacking signal was activated on the second plane before it went missing. The signal came at 11:04 p.m. from the Tu-154 airliner, Interfax quoted the source in Russia’s “power structures” as saying.

By: mwalls

mwalls — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 03:26:04 +0000

Consider how few Tupolev’s actually crash (especially with Russian maintenance and airfield conditions). Not too shabby.