After a Boeing 737 operating as Flydubai Flight 981 crashed in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don Saturday, preliminary accounts suggested that the plane had clipped a wing or struck the ground with its tail while attempting to land in stormy weather. Indeed, in a story published later that day, RT.com quoted Rostov region governor Vasily Golubev as saying, “The plane was descending and then suddenly dived down. Experts say this was an air pocket that dragged the plane to the left of the runway center. And the plane debris were scattered to the left as well.” Obviously, there is no such thing as an “air pocket.” But it makes intuitive sense that a plane attempting to land in high, gusty winds might succumb to shear at low altitude and low airspeed as it nears touchdown. But this, it appears, is not what happened at all. Frequent contributor Victor Iannello has created a graphic based on ADS-B data transmitted by the plane during its final moments. What it shows is that the plane had descended to land, then aborted the landing and climbed, accelerating as it went. It had already gained 3000 feet altitude and reached a speed of 200 knots when it suddenly plummeted from the sky. Here’s the data in graph form:
This security-camera footage offers a visual sense of what happened:
Mar19 #Rostov, #footage of FZ981 crash, view from Aleksandrovka micro-ds @Eisenhoden pic.twitter.com/TqIdvOmMys
— English Lugansk (@loogunda) March 21, 2016
What happened? Authorities on the scene have found the black boxes and hopefully will have answers soon. For the time being, some have speculated that the plane encountered severe windshear or a microburst, causing it to stall and plummet. But the plane’s descent was nose-down at high speed, so the pilot should have been able to at least attempt to pull up. Personally, I’m reminded of AA587, which crashed in 2001 on takeoff from Long Island after the pilot flying applied to much rudder after encountering wake turbulence from the plane ahead of him on climbout, causing the vertical stabilizer to rip off; the plane dived nearly vertically into the ground. If something similar happened here, parts of the tail should be found at some distance from the main wreckage. Another case that may offer parallels was Kenya Airways Flight 507, which crashed in 2007 while on climbout in bad weather. The pilot lost situational awareness while the autopilot was only partially engaged, the plane entered into an increasingly steep bank, and plunged into the ground. What’s different in the present case is that the plane impacted right on the runway it had been trying to climb away from, implying that it stayed on the same heading the whole time. (That is to say, it hadn’t gone into a roll.) Another unusual aspect of the case was the fact that the pilots had been holding for two hours before making a second landing attempt. I asked Phil Derner, an aircraft dispatcher and aviation expert, for his take. He replied:
For me, as a dispatcher, 1 hour is my max to let an aircraft of mine hold. It’s just a waste of gas; might as well divert and wait for conditions to improve. Shit, even fitting an additional 2 hours of holding fuel to a flight is tough as it is, and then to burn it away in a hold? Also, I only let my flights sit in a holding pattern if I think they WILL get it. If conditions don’t look to be improving right away, I won’t even have them hold…I divert and would rather have them wait it out on the ground. It saves gas, and is safer on the ground. But then again, I don’t know all of the conditions they were facing, what conditions were at their alternate airports, etc. There are so many variables and we just don’t have a lot of info, so it’s tough to determine or judge. But 2 hours….damn.
Meanwhile, on an unrelated topic, I might as well put up a picture of the latest piece of aircraft debris, this one found on a beach in South Africa. Not many details forthcoming yet, but it’s worth noting that MH370 was equipped with two Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines. 
A quick glance at there not-very-high-res images suggests that the piece is roughly similar in appearance to the two pieces recently found in Mozambique, though perhaps somewhat more discolored/weathered. Apparently the piece is on its way to Malaysia.
UPDATE: Here’s another picture that @Susie provided a link to in the comments section:
Jeff:
This has all the earmarks of a microburst. The nose down attitude is consistent with an attempt to gain airspeed & fly out of the stall, but the increased tailwind with reduced altitude prevented recovery.
hi jeff,
I can’t say for 100% sure , but there’s also other other footage that suggests the plane was on fire when it plummeted out of the sky? What do you make of that? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1275581/FlyDubai-FZ981-aircraft-fire-crash.html
About the possible MH370-piece found by the young south african: Shouldn’t this part be gray in stead of white if it’s from MH 370, according to it’s colour-scheme?
@airlandseaman: Hmm. With a groundspeed of 200 knots, and engines at full throttle, that would have to be a heck of a microburst to knock it out of the sky with such a loss of control authority that it just plummeted straight to the ground without any visible attempt to pull up.
@Carla, It’s hard to tell if the plane was on fire, or the landing lights were illuminating the haze to create that “fireball” effect.
As for the color, no, the engines of 9M-MRO were painted gray. E.g.: http://www.airteamimages.com/pics/196/196310_800.jpg
Jeff:
Wind speed differences between the entry side and exit side of a cell can be well in excess of 100kts. Even at 200 kts Gnd Spd, they could have stalled. Need TAS data to know if this was a factor here. All we have so far is gnd spd.
@Jeff, sorry, I didn’t mean the possible new engine piece,that’s grey, I agree. I referred to the piece found by Liam Lotter? Shouldn’t that be grey?
No barnacles! 😉
@carla, Hmm. Good point. There also might be an issue with a missing drainage hole. I’ll see what I can find out.
There is evidence that FZ981 encountered cross-wind on the go-around and dive. Conditions were no-doubt challenging. I still don’t understand why a pilot would pitch down into the ground. I suspect either a mechanical failure or pilot error.
https://twitter.com/RadiantPhysics/status/712267349655588864
Any thoughts on the surface marks/pitting to this latest part?
Btw the 767 from 1996 had Pratt/Whitney engines so at least we know it can’t be from that one.
Regarding the latest debris washing ashore in S.Africa, along with some other recent discoveries in east Africa. If these pieces prove to be from a B777, and they do seem by first appearance, to have one thing in common — the absence of strong evidence of biological life, which would prove they have been adrift for over 2 years.
With the SIO search winding down and scheduled to end this June, I wonder if there may be individuals inside Malaysia who have a motive and very much want to see the ocean search continue beyond June. Several pieces of plane debris washing ashore would give the story new life in the world media, and put pressure on the governments to continue funding the search.
Because of the apparently clean condition of all this debris (except the flaperon), some on this site have previously wondered if the debris may have been planted near, or on some island beaches. If that scenario is true, where could this wing debris come from?
Wasn’t all the debris from MH17 shipped back to some warehouse in Malaysia?
I am just speculating on this point, but what if someone with this motive, gathered a few of these clean, honeycomb wing parts of MH17 and discretely distributed them in the sea, near islands where the planted debris would for sure be discovered??
Jeff,
I think the piece is from Rolls-Royce (engine?). You can see “ROY” letters, as well as a part of Rolls-Royce logotype on this fragment.
Things can’t be simple. What’s the point of wanting so strongly to have it with far fetch explanation while it can be simply what it looks like: debris from MH370 some with barnacles and some without. And that it sank where they are looking for. Why, they would spend hundreds of millions and corrupt hundred of persons to hide some Holy Ugly Truth many cynical here think are the sole bearers? Of course, it soothe people to think they are “in the know” while the rest of us are sheets who gobble the mean “official version”. Plus it sells books and make some obscur writers famous and “experts”.
@Oleksandr, I’m with you on this one.
From MAS photo’s it appears this logo is on two sides of each engine, towards the front at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock positions. Someone posted that all of MAS’s B777’s are powered by Rolls Royce Trent 800 series engines.
Does anyone have a schedule of when the shipment of MH17 debris was delivered and the path the cargo ship may have taken. Maybe it went past Madagascar about 8 months ago after going around South Africa?
link to close up image
https://scontent-mad1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xat1/v/t1.0-9/12033138_10154014045887298_7362195452093254002_n.jpg?oh=3dc7ebe1a927666ce7113cc1df8cf665&oe=5782BE5E
that doesn’t look clean to me.
@Benjane, thanks for your meticulously researched and unemotional assessment of the case. Since you have obviously done your homework, which certainly included contacting well regarded marine biologists, barnacle specialists, drift experts, corrosion experts, criminal psychologists – you name it – you will be in the enviable position to lecture not only the author of this blog but also those who apparently have overlooked the fundamental wisdom that some pieces are with barnacles, some without and dare to ask more precise questions 😉
MH17 was an older 777, and photos show that the RR emblem used black letters on white background. MH370 emblem is white letters on black background.
https://www.planespotters.net/photo/486409/9m-mrd-malaysia-airlines-boeing-777-2h6er
@Susie, No, you’re right, the honeycombs (to my eye) show clear evidence of that brownish algae that is the first to appear on an immersed substrate. And there are bumpy patches to the right that may be attachment points for Lepas or other organisms that have been grazed off.
Sk999,
MH370 was 9M-MRO, not 9M-MRD.
MH,
A reminder: MH17 has crashed in the eastern Ukraine, not SIO. And its fragments were shipped to Eindhoven, not Maputo.
Yes – I deliberatedly linked to 9M-MRD, to show that its emblem does not match the current piece of wreckage. Sorry I wasn’t clear.
Is it possible that we are seeing these light and thin pieces showing up as barnacle free due to the fact that possibly if they were to get infested with them, that they would have sunk already?
Also- Indian ocean being the warmest and anoxic ocean in the world?
sorry to play the great contrarian here-
@littlefoot I do not see many real experts of the sort you speak in this blog. Look at the tsunami flotsam and you’ll see a bit of everything (keeping in mind that a lot of marine life attached to them was probably already there when they start to drift)… You want more precise answers? Everyone do. And we’ll all have to wait quite a bit. In front of a never before seen scenario, there’s no point inventing them for the fun of believing that the CIA, the Mossad, the NFB and Ronald MacDonald planted evidences in the Indian Sea for the entertainment of your “fundamental wisdom”.
[comment redacted by moderator]
@Benjane, if you would like to contribute knowledge or insight to this discussion you are more than welcome. Rudeness and ad hominem attacks, however, will not be tolerated. If you continue in this vein you will be banned.
@Benjane,there are not many experts on this blog, but some. I never claimed to be one of them. But judging by your comments, you’re not one of them either, true? But I was talking about Jeff, who actually consulted some marine biologists.
But you got one thing right: in the case of mh370 we’re truly looking at something which hasn’t happened before. Therefore it would be wise to be open to all possibilities. Many scenarios are possible.
Victor, ALSM,
It seems bank angle of FZ981 was substantially different from zero; perhaps even close to 90 deg based on CCTV footage. This explains plummeting despite growing ground speed.
Re: FlyDubai 981, this came from a guy “Pihero” at airliners.net who’s usually pretty spot on:
I will not come back on the different theories ( always the same ones : fuel *starvation* / stall / tail strike / managementr pressure / gothere-itis / bomb / microburst… etc…) which basically have no basis, especially considering the facts that we have at hand.
It would be quite interesting to stop a moment on the *environment* of this accident.
– 03.43 H local (the crew had already been on duty for eight hours ( from 16:45 to 00:43 Z)
– Weather was rainy and gusty wind 240°/ 28 gusting to 44 kt and temporarily 34 to 50 kt.
Visibility was just mediocre.
– the approach is in the dark, the city lays mostly , from the pîlot’s viewpoint from 11 to 2 to 3 o’clock, meaning that there was a dark patch on the left side of the let-down.
-What does the FR24 readout reveal ?
1/- they had a rather bumpy flight as seen by the GS fluctuations during cruise.
2/- They did shoot for a semi-direct first approach, then overshot and joined the hold
3/- They held initially at FL080 then climbed to FL 150 where they did 9 complete racetrack circuits. Wind at that altitude was rather steady : 30 kt component on the racetrack.
– Aircraft was light , less than 52 t if one considers OEW = 43 t / Pax 5.5 t and fuel 3t = 51.5 t
– Considerations on modern twinjet airliners :
It is something few people outside the cockpit really imagine ; These aircraft have basically the thrust-to-weight ratio of an F-100 superSabre, the hottest thing flying not very long ago.
Problem is, these airliners have the engines slung below the wing, so from a low-weight approach speed AND trim, during a go-around one would go to a very important pitch up moment one would have to fight, both with the yoke and with the trim switches.
It’s here that we could see the accident unfold :
– When the pilot initiates the go-around, from 1500 ft, some three nm from the threshold, we have a combination of an acceleration on the airplane axis and a vertical acceleration due to the pitch-up moment.
The inner ear ( our God given gyroscope ) will sense the horizontal acceleration as an added pitch-up, which doesn’t stop there as tha aircr’aft is still accelerating. POilot reaction would be to push the control column, but as the aircr(‘aft is now going down and still accelerating the pilot’s sensation will still be aboutr anj aircraft pointing its nose up.
Moreover ( this is less certain ) trhe darlk lefrt side is taken by the pilot as an *UP* side, which is fact he(s trying to avoid.
– Now we are well and truly inside the death dive caused by what pilots now call *somatogravic illusions*, i.e illusions caused by high accelerations.
– I do not a single second believe in a stall of any sort as the destruction of the airplane is so complete.
For like accidents, the first to come to mind is the GulfAir 320 in Bahrain, the Kenya Airways 737 in Beirut, among a lot of others.
So my hunch is for a crew spatial disorientation in gusty conditions after a long duty day.
[Benjane is banned]
@Warren, Fascinating, thank you.
Image showing what I think are white fairings on a grey underwing area
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Malaysia_Airlines_Boeing_777-200ER_9M-MRO_IST_2012-1-23.png
It could be the light, but I think there is a difference in tone between the different parts.
@Warren: A head-up illusion caused by high linear acceleration and fatigue is the best explanation I’ve yet heard to explain why the plane pitched down and flew into the ground.
@Warren
I’m with you on that one. It was my first thought.
Although the pilot monitoring should have his eyes on the PFD and take over.
@RetiredF4: Like I said, it’s not my idea, but it does seem plausible. Kind of reminds me of the JFK Jr. crash.
For rhose interested.
http://aviationknowledge.wikidot.com/aviation:somatogravic-illusion
The accident of Air Afrique 12. May 2010 was attributed to the same reason. It happened in daylight and both pilots pushed into the ground.
aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20100512-0
Copy the above into google, as only one link is allowed.
Thanks, Warren for pointing us to this fascinating explanation of how the accident might’ve happened, and RetiredF4 for the very good link, which explains the phenomenon of the somatogravic illusion very well – especially the fatal consequences it can have.
Isn’t it strange that the somatogravic illusion occurred 50 seconds after initiating the go-around (i.e. the application of G/A thrust) ? And why did he abort the landing at that altitude?
@Gysbreght: The head-up, somatogravic illusion is aggravated by high acceleration. If you look at the speed curve above, at 00:41:19 to 00:41:37, the acceleration was highest. For instance, the average acceleration between 00:41:19 and 00:41:25 was about 0.13g.
Why did the plane appear to be on fire?
Warren – barnacle issue noted, but this one is comparatively hammered – with filthy honeycomb…..
And another quirk. Remembering the flaperon is a traceable assembly, all the others came with a name. No step – 676EB, and Rolls Royce. Surely we are due for a bit of plane with no writing on it?? Like the other 98%
The engine cowling basically consists of three section: the inlet, the fan cowl and the thrust reverser. (Apologies if I have the terms mislabeled). The Rolls Royce logo is on the first section – the inlet.
US Airways 1549 had CFM56 engines. Here is a picture of one of the engines after being hauled out of the Hudson:
https://c4.staticflickr.com/4/3373/3205854587_4c39c1e950_z.jpg
Note that the inlet is largely intact. The Mossel Bay piece, by contrast, is torn off. Not sure one should draw too much of a conclusion, but it does suggest that MH370 did not enter the water in a controlled fashion.
But another piece supportive of a ditch? And still no Australian bits?
sk999 – would it depend on the sea state??
The Hudson event is used as a benchmark yet they call it a miracle?
@VictorI:
Yes, I know that. But that acceleration and the pitch attitude did not change appreciably after the engines had spooled up to G/A thrust, which would have been a few seconds after selecting G/A thrust.
@all
Does anyone recall seeing a picture of the Gibson find before he retrieved it – i.e. a picture of the debris before he actually picked it up? I cannot find one.
Was it in the water or on a beach?
@Dennis, Blaine says that the boat captain handed him the piece.
@Matty — Perth, Good point about all the debris being found having words on them.
@Victor, I’d point out that based on the flightradar 24 data, it seems like the flight was on a good stabilized approach, and the cloud bases were pretty high, based on the video. Would have been harder to get spatially disoriented. So, not necessarily an entirely similar case to the other somatogravic tragedies.
@Matty, I also noted that that every piece of new debris just by chance came with writing – with writing which provided important clues which allow to make a connection to a B777. Now you may argue that the writing might make it more likely that a piece gets picked up and reported. But that was definitely not the case with Blaine Gibson’s and Liam Lötter’s pieces.
As to the plane seemingly being on fire in the air: there are other video editions which show clearly that the intense light is diffused light from the landing lights. Since it’s so hazy the plane seems to be surrounded with light.
@Jeff
That is all I have been able to find as well. I think it is important to know the initial disposition. If it was lying out of the water for a long period of time it is possible that sunlight, wind, rain, scavengers,… could have a significant impact on the cosmetic appearance of the part. It may have started out looking like the cowling part, but was “eroded” over time by the elements. Just speculating here.
WRT the latest piece – is that sludge on the top of the honeycomb capping off tge cells or is it adhesive from where the top surface was bonded to it? I think it looks like the layer capping off the honeycomb is continuous as it disappears under the top surface on the left side of the piece?