I have to say that the cameraman shooting the video did a good job of keeping the aircraft in shot (no pun intended). He got some good oscillation footage. His video will provide a lot of excellent visual info for the investigators to compare against radar/transponder data and flight recorder data. Good work with just a cell phone camera.
Just hope the Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan doesn't get convinced by Russia to suppress any data those recorders have, including voice recorders which might have the sound of the impact.
It's times like these that I wish there was a way for us to reach out to that recorder and express those thoughts. You are absolutely right, it's very, very good footage. He witnessed something awful and it sounds like he was responding as well.
Actually, that raises the question, the person recording the approach, why did he? Even the airline equivalent of trainspotters are unlikely to expect a full two minutes of approach. That's a very long time at the speeds they usually approach in. It also never tipped up with flaps down hard, like every plane I've ever flown on, so... I guess the control rods weren't able to extend the left flaps and he was trying to land without them.
As bad as that was, it could have been so much worse. I'm amazed 40% of the passengers survived. I remember from my childhood an L1011 losing an engine and rolling on approach to Chicago O"Hare. This was back when three companies made wide bodies, with the huge L1011 and DC10s. 250+ people could die in a flash. I think one time when one of these big planes went down, there was one survivor, a baby or toddler whose seat was thrown clear.
I don't know how to fly nor much about these Embraer models, but still, it seems nearly miraculous the pilot was able to keep that many people alive. While he himself did not make it. That's a real mensch, probably.
If we had real news reporting, there should be someone there on the ground to find the guy who did that filming and get the context. I really wish the major news orgs would decide they can manage with just 5 reporters covering the Capitol and keep a couple/three on rotation to get out and do real stories.
Per the BBC: "Shortly after the crash, reports from Russian state-controlled TV said the most likely cause was a strike from a flock of birds." Yea, bird strikes always place lots of small holes in surfaces that are parallel to the airflow, like cabin walls, vertical stabilizers, rudders, horizontal stabilizers, and elevators... If that was said in a video, I'd expect the "head-slap" clip from "Naked Gun" to immediately follow it...
My condolences to those lost a loved one on that flight. I'd like to also add that the flight crew did one hell of a job to continue flying that aircraft after apparently losing all of the hydraulic systems, being able to control the aircraft only through differential thrust (e.g., reduce thrust on the left engine, the right wing starts to move faster, generating more lift to induce a left turn). The fact that they were able to get within 5km of an airport after flying well over 100 miles after being damaged, controlling the aircraft for as long as they did, is a testament to their abilities.
From the video, it looks like during their final turn, they got too slow at too low an altitude to recover by using more thrust...
I do agree with your ending sentiment: those who lost their lives only have Putin to blame. Had it not been for his war of Imperialism, there would have been no reason for Grozny to have active air defense systems attempting to defend against Ukrainian drone attacks.
I wonder if it was like flight 232, where they tried to correct on final but the engines are slow to respond.
Seems like everytime we have a complete loss of controls they say "the odds of that are low", and then it happens again. Flight 123, 232, now J2-8243 all lost control after catastrophic tail damage. But were still capable of flight for significant periods of time.
But I wonder if further redundancy will be developed or if procedures will cover differential thrust landings.
Agreed… throttle response on passenger jets is not like punching it on a fighter jet. Combined with the need to generate lift to stop a descent, they just ran out of altitude to keep flying…
If you look at a 3D representation of the flight, you can see the phugoid oscillations (up-and-down motion) as they struggled to reduce altitude on approach without entering a dive or going off course. That final right hand turn got them too low to recover from over banking to the right: had they been 1,000’ higher, they might have been able to level off.
I was surprised to see Putin admitting Russian air defense was to blame, though anyone in their right mind would have closed the airspace to civilian flights the moment the Ukrainian attack was detected…
I’m from Kazakhstan and would like to share some local insights that might be of interest
- The cameraman who captured the airplane's fall on video noticed that it was flying erratically, which is why he continued filming. I won’t translate exactly what he was saying, basically he expressed his shock and bewilderment using Kazakh and Russian obscenities.
- another cameraman who shot the photos of the crashed airplane and thanks to whom we can see the kind of damage the aircraft received was later arrested for 10 days
- right now the crash site is closed by authorities, and no media is allowed to take new photos
- Ryan mentioned the difficulty of coordinating missile crews and air traffic control teams to intentionally divert an airplane. I want to point out that in post-Soviet countries, such coordination might be easier than it seems. Historically, military units and key organizations like air traffic control often have a "curator"—a KGB/FSB agent overseeing operations with the authority to issue direct orders
This hierarchical structure simplifies the process of sending and executing such orders through a very short chain of command
- Back in 2020, Azerbaijan shot down a Russian helicopter over Armenia. As a result, the Azerbaijani government might avoid paying too much attention to the current situation. Being an authoritarian regime, it would be relatively easy for them to control the narrative
My question is why was the person on the ground taking a video of the plane in the first place? What was the plane doing that the average person thought they had to record it?
- Initially, the plane recedes as it goes farther away. Then, after about a minute, it begins to enlarge again. I think the plane did a kind of semi-circle, maybe an oblong oval. It seems that it "came back".
- Why would it come back?
- Ultimately, the plane is seen getting close to the ground. We see buildings / structures. Those are airport-related buildings/structures.
So, I suspect that at the end of the video, the plane is coming in to make its landing, and the filming is from INSIDE the area of the airport. Furthermore, I presume that the filmer works at the airport, and began filming when he heard / saw the plane first experienced its oscillations, during its approach.
An airport employee or other person familiar with operations may have heard sirens and seen emergency vehicles heading to whatever locations they are assigned yo wait in the event of a possible incident involving an aircraft in trouble.
So, with cellphone in hand, he kept an eye out for a plane heading in and began filming as soon as he did so, continuing do do so until it crashed.
Thanks for the analysis. While my knowledge on the subject is limited, I believe the SAM system didn’t necessarily have to be positioned near the airport. There are numerous military sites in and around Grozny. Ukrainians have not targeted civilian airports like Grozny, so there seems to be little justification for placing a SAM there in the first place.
Blancolirio covered this well. Your comment as to the dugout motion actually speaks to loss of all hydraulics. Shrapnel inside cabin speaks to projectiles. The oxygen masks speaks to depressurization above 10,000 feet, which would be very early in the approach indeed! This was a shoot down, probably an accident. In fact, pilots point out the HEROIC and competent flying, apparently using differential thrust to turn and land. Blanclirio points out that there was no evidence of flaps, ailerons spoilers. The only operated parts were the landing gear which have a cable backup. But your theory of why divert across the Caspian Sea makes total sense. Between weather and hostiles, I cannot imagine the stress. The flight characteristics were identical to other massive hydraulic failure. And this was a triple backup fly-by-wire. Video at blancolirio.
Take a look at Juan Browne's channel "Blancoliro". As an airline pilot he has an array of tools to analyze this incident. In particular, he describes the up and down motion ("pilot induced oscillation") as being similar to that in the United flight 242 crash in Sioux City caused by the loss of hydraulic fluid and control. He also shows closeups of the skin damage to the plane. I think the entry and exit wounds make in clear (ref to MH 17 shootdown over Ukraine) that this plane was hit by a missile.
According to the METAR published* for Grozny area (specifically, Khankala Air Base 8 miles south-east of Grozny Airport) around the time of the supposed landing, the wind was coming in from the west and runway 26 at Khankala was in use. That means the aircraft most likely was on approach from the east.
Still, by that same token, one may speculate there might have been a secondary SAM system of some kind stationed to the south-east, either at that same Khankala Air Base or in the fields immediately north of it. That would be congruent with a SAM hitting on the left side.
Western politicians are fully responsible for this event occurring. Had western politicians not been cowards and scared garbage and dealt with russia as should have happened, this event and the other passenger airliner would likely have never been shot down.
This is what political weakness and political fear creates. And more of these situations will happen the longer the western world has weak politicians and those politicians are unwilling to attack russia and push them back through force of arms.
In a few more years when china is more economically stable, they will attack Taiwan and the western nations will get out it's stationary and wonderful custom pens and complain briskly using bold, standard fonts and finger pointing and talking sternly into their microphones at the UN. China can see how weak NATO is politically, and thus the NATO military is just as weak, and they will exploit this.
Western weakness and indifference and political weakness has caused all of this, and it will get worse.
... during a much extended and effectively ‘open ended’ term in an office that grants him total and absolute authority over all of Russia’s internal and international affairs...
... has had a much, much greater and decidedly direct influence upon the fate of the country of Ukraine for at least the last decade.
I feel his decisions, however justified, ultimately resulted in the demise of at least two civilian commercial aircraft.
If you want a qualified pilot to explain what most likely happened and why the jet behaved as it did then you should watch this short video. https://youtu.be/1J04wUKZUCI?si=nY50EgxWPs_pU0uV
He is very reliable in the information he shares, mostly on aviation related stuff as he is a pilot.
Charles
Was going to recommend Juan Brown's video, as well as Denys Davidov's Pilot Blog video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQEghJ8UVWk) on the incident..
As Ryan would say, go with the subject matter experts...
I have to say that the cameraman shooting the video did a good job of keeping the aircraft in shot (no pun intended). He got some good oscillation footage. His video will provide a lot of excellent visual info for the investigators to compare against radar/transponder data and flight recorder data. Good work with just a cell phone camera.
Just hope the Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan doesn't get convinced by Russia to suppress any data those recorders have, including voice recorders which might have the sound of the impact.
It's times like these that I wish there was a way for us to reach out to that recorder and express those thoughts. You are absolutely right, it's very, very good footage. He witnessed something awful and it sounds like he was responding as well.
Actually, that raises the question, the person recording the approach, why did he? Even the airline equivalent of trainspotters are unlikely to expect a full two minutes of approach. That's a very long time at the speeds they usually approach in. It also never tipped up with flaps down hard, like every plane I've ever flown on, so... I guess the control rods weren't able to extend the left flaps and he was trying to land without them.
As bad as that was, it could have been so much worse. I'm amazed 40% of the passengers survived. I remember from my childhood an L1011 losing an engine and rolling on approach to Chicago O"Hare. This was back when three companies made wide bodies, with the huge L1011 and DC10s. 250+ people could die in a flash. I think one time when one of these big planes went down, there was one survivor, a baby or toddler whose seat was thrown clear.
I don't know how to fly nor much about these Embraer models, but still, it seems nearly miraculous the pilot was able to keep that many people alive. While he himself did not make it. That's a real mensch, probably.
If we had real news reporting, there should be someone there on the ground to find the guy who did that filming and get the context. I really wish the major news orgs would decide they can manage with just 5 reporters covering the Capitol and keep a couple/three on rotation to get out and do real stories.
Cheers.
Nice Vid, Ryan. 👍
Per the BBC: "Shortly after the crash, reports from Russian state-controlled TV said the most likely cause was a strike from a flock of birds." Yea, bird strikes always place lots of small holes in surfaces that are parallel to the airflow, like cabin walls, vertical stabilizers, rudders, horizontal stabilizers, and elevators... If that was said in a video, I'd expect the "head-slap" clip from "Naked Gun" to immediately follow it...
My condolences to those lost a loved one on that flight. I'd like to also add that the flight crew did one hell of a job to continue flying that aircraft after apparently losing all of the hydraulic systems, being able to control the aircraft only through differential thrust (e.g., reduce thrust on the left engine, the right wing starts to move faster, generating more lift to induce a left turn). The fact that they were able to get within 5km of an airport after flying well over 100 miles after being damaged, controlling the aircraft for as long as they did, is a testament to their abilities.
From the video, it looks like during their final turn, they got too slow at too low an altitude to recover by using more thrust...
I do agree with your ending sentiment: those who lost their lives only have Putin to blame. Had it not been for his war of Imperialism, there would have been no reason for Grozny to have active air defense systems attempting to defend against Ukrainian drone attacks.
I wonder if it was like flight 232, where they tried to correct on final but the engines are slow to respond.
Seems like everytime we have a complete loss of controls they say "the odds of that are low", and then it happens again. Flight 123, 232, now J2-8243 all lost control after catastrophic tail damage. But were still capable of flight for significant periods of time.
But I wonder if further redundancy will be developed or if procedures will cover differential thrust landings.
Agreed… throttle response on passenger jets is not like punching it on a fighter jet. Combined with the need to generate lift to stop a descent, they just ran out of altitude to keep flying…
If you look at a 3D representation of the flight, you can see the phugoid oscillations (up-and-down motion) as they struggled to reduce altitude on approach without entering a dive or going off course. That final right hand turn got them too low to recover from over banking to the right: had they been 1,000’ higher, they might have been able to level off.
I was surprised to see Putin admitting Russian air defense was to blame, though anyone in their right mind would have closed the airspace to civilian flights the moment the Ukrainian attack was detected…
I’m from Kazakhstan and would like to share some local insights that might be of interest
- The cameraman who captured the airplane's fall on video noticed that it was flying erratically, which is why he continued filming. I won’t translate exactly what he was saying, basically he expressed his shock and bewilderment using Kazakh and Russian obscenities.
- another cameraman who shot the photos of the crashed airplane and thanks to whom we can see the kind of damage the aircraft received was later arrested for 10 days
https://kaztag.kz/en/news/azamat-sarsenbayev-who-filmed-plane-crash-site-arrested-for-10-days-in-aktau
- right now the crash site is closed by authorities, and no media is allowed to take new photos
- Ryan mentioned the difficulty of coordinating missile crews and air traffic control teams to intentionally divert an airplane. I want to point out that in post-Soviet countries, such coordination might be easier than it seems. Historically, military units and key organizations like air traffic control often have a "curator"—a KGB/FSB agent overseeing operations with the authority to issue direct orders
https://www.jstor.org/stable/48766105?seq=3
This hierarchical structure simplifies the process of sending and executing such orders through a very short chain of command
- Back in 2020, Azerbaijan shot down a Russian helicopter over Armenia. As a result, the Azerbaijani government might avoid paying too much attention to the current situation. Being an authoritarian regime, it would be relatively easy for them to control the narrative
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54874162
My question is why was the person on the ground taking a video of the plane in the first place? What was the plane doing that the average person thought they had to record it?
I was wondering that, myself!
Some observations:
- Initially, the plane recedes as it goes farther away. Then, after about a minute, it begins to enlarge again. I think the plane did a kind of semi-circle, maybe an oblong oval. It seems that it "came back".
- Why would it come back?
- Ultimately, the plane is seen getting close to the ground. We see buildings / structures. Those are airport-related buildings/structures.
So, I suspect that at the end of the video, the plane is coming in to make its landing, and the filming is from INSIDE the area of the airport. Furthermore, I presume that the filmer works at the airport, and began filming when he heard / saw the plane first experienced its oscillations, during its approach.
Greetings...
Likely scenario, as I see it:
An airport employee or other person familiar with operations may have heard sirens and seen emergency vehicles heading to whatever locations they are assigned yo wait in the event of a possible incident involving an aircraft in trouble.
So, with cellphone in hand, he kept an eye out for a plane heading in and began filming as soon as he did so, continuing do do so until it crashed.
Stay Well ...
You can definitely see the pilot using airspeed to control sink rate/vertical velocity.
Love the multiple day growth!
Thanks for the analysis. While my knowledge on the subject is limited, I believe the SAM system didn’t necessarily have to be positioned near the airport. There are numerous military sites in and around Grozny. Ukrainians have not targeted civilian airports like Grozny, so there seems to be little justification for placing a SAM there in the first place.
Here's a map of likely military bases: https://gfsis.org.ge/maps/russian-military-forces
Blancolirio covered this well. Your comment as to the dugout motion actually speaks to loss of all hydraulics. Shrapnel inside cabin speaks to projectiles. The oxygen masks speaks to depressurization above 10,000 feet, which would be very early in the approach indeed! This was a shoot down, probably an accident. In fact, pilots point out the HEROIC and competent flying, apparently using differential thrust to turn and land. Blanclirio points out that there was no evidence of flaps, ailerons spoilers. The only operated parts were the landing gear which have a cable backup. But your theory of why divert across the Caspian Sea makes total sense. Between weather and hostiles, I cannot imagine the stress. The flight characteristics were identical to other massive hydraulic failure. And this was a triple backup fly-by-wire. Video at blancolirio.
Take a look at Juan Browne's channel "Blancoliro". As an airline pilot he has an array of tools to analyze this incident. In particular, he describes the up and down motion ("pilot induced oscillation") as being similar to that in the United flight 242 crash in Sioux City caused by the loss of hydraulic fluid and control. He also shows closeups of the skin damage to the plane. I think the entry and exit wounds make in clear (ref to MH 17 shootdown over Ukraine) that this plane was hit by a missile.
Great analysis, Ryan, thoughtful and thorough. Thanks for this.
According to the METAR published* for Grozny area (specifically, Khankala Air Base 8 miles south-east of Grozny Airport) around the time of the supposed landing, the wind was coming in from the west and runway 26 at Khankala was in use. That means the aircraft most likely was on approach from the east.
Still, by that same token, one may speculate there might have been a secondary SAM system of some kind stationed to the south-east, either at that same Khankala Air Base or in the fields immediately north of it. That would be congruent with a SAM hitting on the left side.
*) Source: https://metar-taf.com/, note that METAR history is paywalled on the site.
Usual great, detailed observations, analysis and delivery. Impressive graphics, Ryan
You need to do an analysis on the cats of Ukraine. Did this Ukrainian cat really take out a Russian drone? Or is it the other way around? 😂😂😂
https://x.com/MarinaMedvin/status/1875205029843624248
Western politicians are fully responsible for this event occurring. Had western politicians not been cowards and scared garbage and dealt with russia as should have happened, this event and the other passenger airliner would likely have never been shot down.
This is what political weakness and political fear creates. And more of these situations will happen the longer the western world has weak politicians and those politicians are unwilling to attack russia and push them back through force of arms.
In a few more years when china is more economically stable, they will attack Taiwan and the western nations will get out it's stationary and wonderful custom pens and complain briskly using bold, standard fonts and finger pointing and talking sternly into their microphones at the UN. China can see how weak NATO is politically, and thus the NATO military is just as weak, and they will exploit this.
Western weakness and indifference and political weakness has caused all of this, and it will get worse.
Greetings,
I am of the opinion that the one guy..
... during a much extended and effectively ‘open ended’ term in an office that grants him total and absolute authority over all of Russia’s internal and international affairs...
... has had a much, much greater and decidedly direct influence upon the fate of the country of Ukraine for at least the last decade.
I feel his decisions, however justified, ultimately resulted in the demise of at least two civilian commercial aircraft.
Stay Well...