On May 9, 2012 in Indonesia during a demonstration flight crashed the newest Russian aircraft Sukhoi Superjet 100. There were 45 passengers on board from 5 countries of the world, including 8 Russians. No survivors were found.
The Russian regional aircraft of the new generation Superjet 100 made a demonstration tour across Asian countries. He visited Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Burma and had to visit also Laos and Vietnam. On May 9, the plane arrived in Jakarta.
Demonstration flights were conducted from the capital's Hakim Perdanakusuma airport. The first one lasted half an hour and went well. The second, held on the same day, began in sunny weather. However, after the plane passed over the mountain range, it got into a strip of rain and fog. 20 minutes after the start of the flight, the crew requested a descent clearance from the controller. The plane flew at an altitude of 3 thousand meters, and the crew, apparently, tried to bypass the powerful cumulus clouds from below, the upper boundary of which on that day lay at an altitude of 11, 1 thousand meters. The liner disappeared from the radar screens 8 seconds after it was received permission to reduce to 1, 8 thousand m.
The next morning, the wreckage of the missing plane was found on the western slope of Mount Salak. According to the testimony of rescuers, their position on an almost vertical surface suggests that the liner fell flat, i.e. at the last moment, the pilot tried to climb sharply to avoid the collision.
Indonesian experts believe that the cause of the crash was a crew error. According to them, the plane was supposed to descend later, in the area of the Pangadaran beach, since the minimum allowed flight altitude in this area is 3, 3 thousand meters.
On May 11, Russian aviation experts simulated the last flight of the SSJ-100 airliner using a special simulator at the Air Personnel Training Center. They also concluded that a crew error was the cause of the tragedy. A security system is installed on board. All signals are duplicated. In the event of an obstacle, a message is displayed on the central display and the voice informant is activated. It is simply impossible not to notice the signal of the warning system. Experts are confident that this is not a controllers' fault, as they only give the altitude and descent rate. The elevation of the relief must be incorporated into the liner BPMR. The experiment carried out is unofficial, its participants only tried to clarify for themselves the cause of the disaster.
Flight safety specialist Vladimir Gerasimov, taking into account the facts available at the moment, also believes that the crew violated the safety standards existing for flights in mountainous terrain. Since it was a controlled flight, and the crew did not report failures, therefore, this is not a technical problem, but a pilot error.
Honored test pilot, Hero of Russia Anatoly Knyshov, however, has a different point of view. He says that the SSJ-100 was flown by a very experienced crew. And the terrain and weather conditions should be taken into account not only by pilots, but also by ground services. If the plane reaches the extreme bearings, the controller is obliged to warn the crew so as not to give the opportunity to leave the course and, even more so, to descend. In addition, the expert believes that lightning discharges could lead to a failure of the security system. Consequently, it is possible that the crew did not have complete information about their location and what was ahead.
To date, both flight recorders have been found. Their decoding will be carried out by specialists from the Jakarta laboratory in conjunction with Russian experts. It is possible that after the completion of the work, they will be able to name the exact reason for the fall of the SSJ-100. But so far, this cannot be done.
