MOSCOW — Rescuers who hiked Thursday to the remote slope of a dormant Indonesian volcano where a new-model Russian passenger jet crashed found no signs that any of the 50 people aboard had survived, according to local news media and the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The ministry said a group of Russian aviation experts arrived Thursday in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, to help with the crash investigation, whose findings will be crucial to Russia’s aircraft manufacturers.
The first post-Soviet civilian airliner designed in Russia’s trouble-plagued aviation industry, the Sukhoi Superjet 100 had been amassing orders on a six-nation promotional tour through Asia. Just 21 minutes into a Wednesday afternoon demonstration flight, with aviation executives and journalists on board, it vanished from radar. Deep fog kept the plane’s fate a mystery overnight, but its wreckage was eventually spotted along the slope of a steep ridge draped in jungle growth in West Java. Photographs showed a brown gash in the ridge and a cascade of debris.
Moments before the crash, for reasons as yet unknown, the pilot requested to descend to 6,000 feet from 10,000 feet.
Investigators are faced with determining whether to blame mechanical problems for the disaster — which would be a deep blow to Russia’s hopes of seizing part of the lucrative international aviation market — or human error.
A deputy Russian prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin, said the aircraft was working “impeccably” before the crash and suggested that “the human factor” — a reference to pilot error or a mistake by ground controllers — was likely to blame. Russian authorities often blame crashes on pilot error, even before the results of an investigation.
Of the new Russian airplane, Mr. Rogozin said: “It’s a modern airplane. Pilots have a high opinion of it.”
Aeroflot, the Russian national airline, issued a statement Thursday saying it will continue to fly the seven planes in its fleet.
But Fitch, the rating agency, issued a note saying the crash would harm the financial outlook of Sukhoi, a government-controlled company, as fewer airlines would be willing to buy the Superjet now — particularly in light of a long history of safety lapses with earlier models of Russian jets.
Sukhoi had hoped to sell about 1,000 Superjets over a decade, and already had 170 orders on the books. Three Indonesian airlines — Kartika, Sky Aviation and Queen Air — had together intended to buy at least 48 Superjets, The Association Press reported, but spokesmen for two of the airlines said they would suspend those orders until the outcome of the investigation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/world/asia/russia-plane-crash-indonesia-wreckage-found.html?_r=1&ref=indonesia. (2012/05/16, 11:31)
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