FlyDubai FZ981 crashes in Rostov-on-Don, Russia

[Kaiser]

All 61 souls aboard reported to have perished after crashed near the runway in poor weather conditions.

https://www.rt.com/news/336185-boeing-crash-dubai-rostov/

 

[Major]

Not good

Russian plane crash: Reports 59 dead in Boeing 737 FlyDubai crash in country’s south

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

Sad news. Updated to 62, all Russian pax with 7 international crew.

 

[Archphoto]

Security video footage has been released - not pretty:

Russia plane crash: Investigators recover flight recorders - BBC News

 

[jb747]

http://vatrus.info/files/charts/URRR_jepp_1301.pdf

The Rostov instrument approach charts.

 

[Ansett]

A very sad day and condolences to those that have lost family friends and loved ones in this tragedy.

Is it me or when watching the below video a around 38 seconds and on. The plane appears from the left and seems to show that the plane may already have been on fire before the crash either that or the aircraft lights are very bright and being distorted.

Russia plane crash: Investigators recover flight recorders - BBC News

 

[jb747]

Is it me or when watching the below video a around 38 seconds and on. The plane appears from the left and seems to show that the plane may already have been on fire before the crash either that or the aircraft lights are very bright and being distorted.

Lights......

 

[Aussie_flyer]

You have to wonder how much fuel was left considering the 2 hour hold after the first missed approach. This is a long time airborne for a 737

 

[Mattg]

Apparently, during the time the aircraft was holding, another plane made 3 aborted landing attempts before deciding to divert. So, it seems clear that weather may have been a factor. The issue of fuel did also cross my mind. They were holding for a long time. I wonder why the pilots chose not to divert?

From this article:

In between the flydubai jet's first attempt to land and the crash, another plane made three landing efforts and then diverted, FlightRadar 24, which tracks airline movements, said in a Twitter posting.

 

[Ansett]

Lights......

And from a different angle

Flydubai downplays possibility terrorism caused crash - 9news.com.au

 

[marki]

Thanks for the links guys !

 

[jb747]

Apparently, during the time the aircraft was holding, another plane made 3 aborted landing attempts before deciding to divert. So, it seems clear that weather may have been a factor. The issue of fuel did also cross my mind. They were holding for a long time. I wonder why the pilots chose not to divert?

There's been a lot of discussion on the various forums and sites, as usual. Some of it contains what appear to be facts, whilst there's the usual amount of drivel. From AvHerald:

The aircraft carried fuel for trip, contingency, alternate, final fuel reserve (30 minutes) and additional holding for about 2:30 hours, total fuel for an endurance of about 8.5 hours. The aircraft had been airborne until time of impact for 06:02 hours.

Contingency fuel is irrelevant at the end of the flight, and I can't really see how it would have existed anyway. Most likely just a subset of the holding fuel.

FFR is what you have to have at the end of the landing roll..you never plan to burn it.

Variable fuel isn't mentioned, but must have been there in some form. It wouldn't be a great deal.

Trip fuel is gone.

From the first go around, to the next approach, is a little under two hours. So he's burnt most, but not all, of the holding fuel. This is possibly a driver behind the timing of flying the second approach.

His diversion fuel is intact.

From another site there's a claim that foreign aircraft that divert in Russia are sent back their origin, not their destination. Not something I've ever heard of, but silly rules abound in aviation. If true, this would provide a strong disincentive to diverting.

 

[Mattg]

This is probably the best summary I have seen so far:

flydubai crash in Russia: the facts - Airline news, Aviation news, Commercial news | AeroTime

What happened
A scheduled flight from Dubai to Rostov-On-Don departed from Dubai International Airport at 22:20 local time (18:20 UTC) on 18 March 2016. The aircraft was scheduled to reach the destination point at 1:20 local time (UTC+3) on 19 March 2016. At 1:38 the aircraft commenced final approach to Rostov-On-Don airport, but 4 minutes later the pilots aborted the first approach at approx. 525 m (1725 ft). At 2:27 flydubai's Boeing 737-800 entered holding pattern at 4572 m (15 000 ft) to the southeast of the airport and leaves the pattern for a second approach at 3:28. Twelves minutes later, at 3:40 the pilots aborted the second approach at 472 m (1550 ft) and 5.6 km short of the runway. At 03:41 the aircraft disappeared from the radars and impacted terrain after a steep descent from 1211 m (3975 ft). The airplane completely disintegrated 253 m (830 ft) left of the runway, killing all 62 people on board.

The article goes on to say that very strong winds hampering the aircraft at a low altitude may have contributed to the crash.

There has been a lot of discussion about this on various other forums. One discussion I read focused on the fact that the pilots may not have had the appropriate visas for an unplanned stop in Russia (thus contributing to their decision not to divert). I don't know whether or not this is true.

 

[N860CR]

You have to wonder how much fuel was left considering the 2 hour hold after the first missed approach. This is a long time airborne for a 737

Without saying too much (I've had a bit to do with flydubai over the years), I can fairly safely say they were tankering fuel from Dubai. The very light passenger load would have allowed them to carry quite a lot (by rough estimates... 2.5-3 hours in addition to any required holding or alternate fuel).

 

[jb747]

I wonder if this might be appropriate reading....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_illusions_in_aviation

 

[Quickstatus]

Looks like there were issues with the horizontal stabiliser. But what led to that point?
Crash: Flydubai B738 at Rostov on Don on Mar 19th 2016, lost height on go around after stabilizer moved nose down following holding for 2 hours

There have been other crashes involving stabiliser malfunctions.
Alaska Air Flight 261 crash: What is a horizontal stabilizer? Are there previous crashes caused by stabilizer malfunctions?

Just in case: the horizontal stabiliser is the entire wing at the tail and is on many airplanes adjustable (part of the trim to keep airplane in a certain position - either straight and level, turn climb or descend without requiring constant application of force on flight control surfaces (kind of like zeroing a set of scales) . Attached to and at the trailing end of the horizontal stabiliser are the elevators.

 

[jb747]

Looks like there were issues with the horizontal stabiliser. But what led to that point?
Crash: Flydubai B738 at Rostov on Don on Mar 19th 2016, lost height on go around after stabilizer moved nose down following holding for 2 hours

There have been other crashes involving stabiliser malfunctions.
Alaska Air Flight 261 crash: What is a horizontal stabilizer? Are there previous crashes caused by stabilizer malfunctions?

As far as we know at this stage, those two events have very little in common. Alaskan lost the thread to the screw jack that adjusted the horizontal tail, and as such totally lost both control of the stab, and it's ability to remain in one place.

In this instance, it appears that a very large amount of nose down trim has been applied. It has happened at a point when trim would have been used to control the pitch up forces encountered in a go around, but has been associated with a simultaneous nose down pitch input. There are two switches that need to be activated simultaneously to move the trim. There are also cut out switches. Moving the control column in the opposite direction to any trim input should also stop it (at least it does in the 747/767).

We need to know what the control column input(s) were throughout the period of this trim input.