Original title was: “Another mid-air – and again very close to the aerodrome, and again with a helicopter involved”
Here – 71 killed, as reported recently.
What is wrong with those helicopters? It seems to occur worldwide and also in so-called developed countries – are choppers intrinsically bad/dangerous/unreliable?
RIP to the victims and warm sympathy with those who remain to mourn them.
It’s not clear a helicopter was involved. Cause so far unknown. Investigators are focusing on maintenance both by the airline (offices being searched) and at Domodedovo facilities, but say that no causes, including weather, have been discounted.
As the aircraft had climbed to 6400 feet (according to ADS-B) and there was an overcast at 2600 feet, it seems very unlikely that a helicopter was involved. And even if it was, it would have been flying under IFR and thus in all likelyhood under ATC control.
So, no helicopter? No mid-air?
No. There is virtually nothing known at this time other than they departed normally and climbed to 6000 ft approximately before pitching over and diving down at over 3000 fpm. The impact and wreckage area looks like they were trying to pull out of the dive when they hit. But that is already speculation.
There seems to have been some initial recovery between plummets.
But where has the helicopter entered the story?
Timothy wrote:
But where has the helicopter entered the story?
Apparently one of the first debris items found on the site was a mail bag, so someone concluded they must have collided with a mail helicopter….. very inventive indeed as there are none around Moscow, but there are some in certain areas of Russia where mail would otherwise not reach.
It is the typical scenario after a major crash that everyone has seen something and then something else and the press eats up whatever makes it to the newswires. They don’t really care if it is true or not as long as it sells papers (or provokes clicks in todays world). This particular one did however get reported by reputable organisations initially, which is why it made it into avherald and other serious sites too. It was disproven rather quickly though.
The helicopter is mentioned in the report on Av_Herald ( http://avherald.com/h?article=4b4cb236&opt=0 ) but reports are indeed contradictory. Unreliable source? Hush-up? Fake news? We can’t know and probably never will. I must admit some counter-arguments, particularly about the altitude (which was not mentioned in the initial report) do seem to make sense.
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
The helicopter is mentioned in the report on Av_Herald
Yes and because it was reported by usually reliable news reels Simon originally put it in but it is also mentioned that Interfax later dropped it. The MAK is clear on the issue though, as he mentions in the next paragraph:
The Ministry reported no other aircraft was found near the crash site.
The reference was left in in order to make it clear that we had considered the information re the helicopter but know now it was not valid information. (Otherwise we’d be bombarded by people telling us the “news” about the helo….)
As I said in the reply to Timothy, best we know the report was started by a mail bag found at the crash site which was transported on the plane however. Someone then rashly concluded that a postal helo must have been involved but a) there are none in operation in the region and b) even if it would not have been flying in moderate icing at 6000 ft but below the clouds…
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
Unreliable source? Hush-up? Fake news?
This is perfectly normal in the first hours after a crash. People are under shock and the newsies “need” information so they take on board whatever they are told. To them, they do not have to care if it is true or not, main thing is they get their clicks up and are the first to report something. With publications like the Herald this is obviously different, however we are not immune to the influx of these first hour messages and have to decide which is credible and which not. There were tons of reports that the plane was on fire in the air, had exploded in the air, e.t.c. all of which were proven wrong by the CCTV crash video.
I reckon we will know a lot more about what happened once the MAK have read out the recorders and will publish the results. They are usually quite fast doing that, so hopefully it will become clear within a few days what happened, even if the underlying reasons may well take a couple of years to fully determine and release a report.
