No gear deployed as more likely to have smooth landing on rough ground. If the gear had been down the mains would have broken backwards immediately into the bottom the wing, possibly slewing the aircraft around and breaking into the fuel tanks.
Having said that, it all happened so fast that the pilots were probably focussed on trying to get some power back as the plane slowly flew into the ground. From the one video out a passenger window there was no sign that I could see even of an attempt to flare the plane to reduce speed and bring it down tail first.
denopa wrote:
I understand the no PA part (no time) but am very surprised
I am wondering why there is no crowd control by the crew after evacuation. People standing around far too close…
May be cultural – the stereotypical Russian is quite stoic and not very excitable.
I understand the no PA part (no time) but am very surprised by the lack of screaming from passengers. I guess nobody who would scream realised.
Noe wrote:
and since it’s a russian “vehicle”, when are we going to see the dashcam footage
Check the Avherald link in the first post!
Noe wrote:
and since it’s a russian “vehicle”, when are we going to see the dashcam footage
Thanks, you made my day :) :) :)
Noe wrote:
Interesting to note that it’s likely that the pilot probably did everything he had to do correctly
They did, as shows the outcome.
Never flown an airbus but from jumpseating know that it has a great „minimum kinetic energy“ feature called green dot speed (lift/drag). In a situation like this one the manual flying part is automatic muscle memory, i.e. flying the green dot, while the hard part is decision making in split seconds while not giving in to the „fight/flight“ impulses of your body and doing something silly only for doing somethings worth instead of calmly doing the right thing. For the most part one is „in for the ride“ and there’s only so much one can do to manipulate the outcome. Eg Sully switching on the APU and deciding to turn towards the River. The overall flight path vector is more or less set in such a scenario, you can only do some tweaking.
Noe wrote:
I am generally of the view that having tons of flying experience in small planes probably does not as much as is credited in getting the right flying skills for liners)In the US it is partly credited. In the EU not so much. Some airlines do not like thousands of piston hours for a variety of reasons, which can be pretty unfair.
It depends on so many variables it’s not possible to answer this question straight. I think a pilot with at least some talent will have no problems manually flying either. It’s an airplane at last. I went from 700kg to 1500kg to 20tons to 30tons and along to >300tons and the flying was never something that needed any focus. Correctly operating over the wide band of normal to abnormal ops is a different story. SEP hours do not help much for airline ops though, and airline hours do not help much for SEP ops.
I kept my SEP valid (doing only the yearly check flight) and started actively flying more SEP again when I had 5000 hours on liners. While the flying was easy, especially as everything went so slow and gave me more mental capacity, I had to focus a lot on re-learning weather interpretation, engine management and flight planning.
… and since it’s a russian “vehicle”, when are we going to see the dashcam footage 
Interesting to note that it’s likely that the pilot probably did everything he had to do correctly, despite likely coming from what looks like to me what is often the ATPL sausage factory (I am generally of the view that having tons of flying experience in small planes probably does not as much as is credited in getting the right flying skills for liners):
From CNN
Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported that the 41-year-old pilot, Damir Yusupov, has clocked up more than 3,000 flight hours, citing Ural Airlines’ press service.
Yusupov graduated with honors in 2013 from St. Petersburg State University of Civil Aviation and was hired by the company immediately after graduating, RIA-Novosti said.
EDIT: It’s also possible the pilot would have messed up quite a bit but the enveloppe protection “saved” it, but I imagine it doen’t really work that close to the ground. Our resident “bus drivers” might know something about it.
Incredible job by the pilots. The startle effect is huge. Amazing they pulled this of so smoothly in a matter of seconds.
