Russian Passenger Air Crash

No commercial flight death at all in 2017.
Russian planes feature regularly in the Aircrash Investigates documentary programme.

Been heavy snow in Moscow this week, RIP poor souls.

Massive debris field, lots of small bits.  Almost certainly an in-flight break-up.  Will be interesting to see what caused it.

Yes came down in Bits ,RIP poor people ,on route to the Urals .. One recorder has already been recovered ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=33&v=fQktxb4eEG8

Clearly not an in-flight break-up, but a relatively shallow, high-speed, cartwheeling impact which resulted in a massive spread of debris.

Just looks like a Fireball to me  , Dreadful

world cup travellers can't be feeling great

Preliminary accident report out already.  Frozen/blocked pitot tubes leading to erroneous air speed information being presented to the crew. 

they are meant to be heated, something wrong with procedure ?

They haven't said (or don't yet know) whether they were turned off by the crew or in-operative.  The heater was on and functioning for the previous 15 flights worth of data on the flight data recorder after the crash.

don't they put covers on

I don't know for sure but I would imagine they'd only get covered overnight, and this was the aeroplane's third sector of the day.  As LCFC says, with functioning pitot heaters, it shouldn't be an issue.  They could easily have become blocked if they flew through precipitation after take-off in the climb.

Latalomne • February 13, 2018 5:02 PM GMT
Preliminary accident report out already.  Frozen/blocked pitot tubes leading to erroneous air speed information being presented to the crew.

thats what downed the flight from brazil to paris I think, the instruments were frozen and giving false readings and they ended up stalling

Crash had nothing to do of course with certain passengers onboard.

Passengers Killed on Crashed Russian Plane Include CFO of Rosatom/UraniumOne and Russian Source for Christopher Steele's "Dossier" against Trump
As Russian authorities released passenger names on the official Death list, several of those now-deceased names raised immediate "red flags" because they appear to be directly connected to the Hillary Clinton / Barack Obama UraniumOne Conspiracy and to the (fake) "Russian Dossier" used to smear President Trump.

haha and so it begins

Thing about the brazil/paris one and perhaps this is they didn't seem to use common sense?
Say there's a blocked pitot that tells it you're to slow and stalling. The paris pilot kept pulling up (wrong thing to do anyway) and killed everyone as the captain only realised the other pilot was doing something stupid too late. What did this pilot do? There would be I'm sure redundant artificial horizons, if I had a slow speed/stall warning in icy conditions I'd put the engines to high and put the plane at a safe orientation, watch the other gauges, not overeact (and pray). Basically - trust the things not known to affected by freezing conditions, not put my faith in something known to be affected by adverse weather, in adverse weather?

Exactly, JC.  Power and pitch.  That's what it's all about.  I don't think it's been stated definitively yet, but this looks more like they did push rather than pull, hence the spectacular, high-energy impact.

Sad to hear of this loss of lives and always interested in how the initial reports grow arms and legs and then as the information flow changes so does the theries of what could have been the reasons or chain of events that may have caused the crash .Initially it was reported a helicopter was involved ,due to mail bags strewn over crash site and the apparent slice sections of fuselage and eye witness reports (often the most unreliable ) of the mid air breakup ,even a bomb was hinted at but as has since  been established the sheer speed of the impact fooled the human brain and the breakup and fireball was after initial impact ,mailbags were on board and sheer speed of impact caused sections behind impact point to shear and come through as sliced carrot sections and probably do some sort of spring concertina and bounce of crumple zone .              As to what was going on between co-pilot and the tower prior to take off and some technical issues will be revealed shortly imo ,the Pitot heaters require to show an amber light if they are off or on and not receiving electric at the element ,this is required to be compliant with western aviation spec and be orthorised for use in the west ,this plane would imo be compliant ,the amber warning light must be visible on display .                                                                                                                  Pilot reportedly refused de-icing as well ,although temps were not cold be Moscow standards but there was low cloud and precipitation ,with frozen tubes the plane had no airspeed ,no altitude and no altitude trend or worse one tube frozen and incorrect data or partly frozen tubes and crazy data ,on decent/climb  it could register crazy stuff ,it was snowing and ground is white ,they were in big trouble and had no idea of anything imo . Question is how does an experienced pilot get it so wrong ? Or did he ? The voice recorder will tell a sad tale in the moments before imo ,he must of been having a real bad day or several events transpired to create the perfect storm for this flight .                                                                                         So was the amber warning light functioning ? The Pitot heaters on this type of Russian made craft were prob very good ,maybe so good for typical very low temps they could not be used when stationary due to overheating ,they need airflow and low temps or they can overheat and burn out or damage the tubes themselves ,it's all falling into place imo . But soon we will know and the info will be available soon hopefully .

*plane had  no airspeed ,altitude or trend  indication .                                                                                                                     *the Pitot heaters are normally auto on most aircraft but the reasons they are not on the this craft will be due to many reasons and ultimately the benefits must outweigh the risks . Although it does appear to be too reliant on human input after take off ,this appears to be the issue ,the plane ultimately relies on Pitot tubes to fly but they need heaters and the heaters need the plane to be flying to function properly ,only the pilot knows when the heaters should be used ,the heaters need their own pitot system ! or they should auto come on when certain parameters are met ,seems to be a major soft spot although why would an experienced pilot not do something he would normally do every flight ? It's a major thing and don't believe it was simply overlooked unless there was major distraction ,stress and possibly some sort of mental failing ?         Even if it was overlooked they must of checked when the flight got into difficulty although impact was some 4 or 6 mins after takeoff depending on which news you get ,all happened very quick ,CVR will tell all on this one and not so sure it will be released as quick as the pitot off info was .

*Must have

Yes, will be interesting to heard the CVR to see if they turned the pitot heating on, or forgot, or it malfunctioned. It was on the previous 15 flights  so seems strange that it wasn't on this time.