Iran crash: Ukrainian passenger plane crashes with 170 on board
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/iran-earthquake-busheh...
That is what we heard after the first 737-Max crash as well. Then came another one and the same line was spewed all over.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...
For example using cheaper materials, ignoring cracks, not properly training new employees etc.
No. Never.
The plane could have had a defect. The parts could have had a defect. Maintenance could have caused damage.
Or, the machine was perfect. It just hit the wrong number of birds at the wrong angle. Or experienced one of countless random errors that can take down a good plane.
(It could also be malice.)
Are they? If I remember correctly, Iran threatened the US / Trump specifically (more so since Trump threatened to attack cultural sites). Were there any threats to other western countries?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/british-strike-on-ir...
Also, just two days after the latest maintenance check (Jan 6th 2020).
The CFM56 engines used appeared to have issues with detaching compressor blades.
Noob question, what are the odds they were testing a nuclear weapon, and how would a foreign agency go about finding if they indeed did a test?
Iran: 82 Canada: 63 Ukraine: 2 + 9 crew members Sweden: 10 Afghanistan: 4 Germany: 3 UK: 3
[1] https://twitter.com/VPrystaiko/status/1214821876742213632
Very surprisingly large number of Canadians by the way.
I noticed that the Associated Press (and news stories derived from AP) are reporting on the age of Iran's commercial fleet, as though that has anything to do with a plane belonging to a Ukrainian airline.
> Iran’s commercial passenger aircraft fleet has aged, with air accidents occurring regularly for domestic carriers in recent years, resulting in hundreds of casualties.
Is there a reason a flights transponder data would just suddenly cut off in the middle of the air in case of engine failure? Maybe really explosive engine failure?
I recall seeing the full history (right up until the plane hits the ground), in other cases of airplane crashes.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187770581...
Would they hand it over to Ukraine who could then hand it over to Boeing? If not, how likely is it the investigation will be reliable?
Could it be shrapnel? This is the basic principle of how anti-air systems damage the aircraft engines.
The smaller holes also might be caused by explosion during the ground impact though.
This is going to be the hell of an investigation given the current tensions in the region.
The main mode of operation is to produce a relatively small near-by explosion that creates a wave of moving particles (shrapnel). Shrapnel causes the destruction of everything it touches.
Engines, radio transmitters, communications, and sadly... people.
If memory serves me right, during the MH17 shoot down over Ukraine it was established quite early that it was a work of a surface to air missile launched by rebels.
If Iran did really shoot down the plane by mistake, can they cover it up by not giving access to the debris?
In Ukraine, there was a cooperative effort to investigate the crash, and it was found to be a Russian missile.
To track it you'd have to be really close. Like next neighborhood or so.
It's hard to hide in this day and age with everyone having a internet connected phone. There are already plenty of videos and photos showing the wreckage and the debris field.
I'm guessing it'll be at least a few months before we hear about the why but I wonder if there will be additional focus on it due to the recent tensions.
- A 3-year old 737 operated by a reputable airline does not just turn into a huge fireball mid-air and crash like a rock like we see it in the video: https://youtu.be/xRc31DTStwA - It just doesn't happen.
- Iran declaring it a "technical error" just hours after the crash is dubious/untrustworthy to say the least. We need a indepedend aviation agency to look at the case, investigators from the manufacturer and some experts from the carrier on ground. Unfournately such investigation will be very difficult with the current political tensions.
They had two accidents on this type of plane with this engine, randomly disintegrating the engine in flight.
Deadly one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1380
Safe landing with no injuries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_3472
Could be any number of things, but probably FOD.
> The term FOD is used to describe both the foreign objects themselves, and any damage attributed to them.
It looks like it was shot down with an air defense missile. You can see the plane on fire as it falls to the earth.
Video taken during the crash, the plane is clearly engulfed in flames:
https://mobile.twitter.com/isna_farsi/status/121475622529397...
Video of the aftermath / wreckage:
https://twitter.com/Looper_i/status/1214772061580615681
https://twitter.com/Looper_i/status/1214773020885041152
It might have been mistakenly triggered as part of Iran's anti-aircraft missile defense or a similar system. The plane probably wasn't safely diverted from an active war zone, and Iran is already in a heightened state of watchful defense.
Similar incidents:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 (TIL; caused by the USA)
Regarding the missile theory: if it was a missle, it was probably accidential. The majority of passengers on board were Iranian citizens.
* Precisely for reason above
Unless it was a non-Iranian missile, or a rogue actor.
(At this point, it's all speculation)
From a suggested twitter video. No affirmative source yet.
It's not hard to imagine the conversation would involve like:-
PILOT: One of the engines has failed catastrophically, we need to make an emergency landing, can you clear the runway back in Tehran or is there another airport we can go to?
They would have been rather occupied with the first two.
There’s a lot of disinformation going on online. We saw this in the recent UK election, there are many players wanting to spread lies.
I just hope our reputable journalists are up to the job.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/janelytvynenko/false-an...
Well, checkout other videos of the twitter user for more.
We’ll likely never know MH370s cause. That’s annoying, and heartbreaking Dott those affected. In itself it doesn’t lead to tens of thousands of more deaths.
Also, missiles travel incredibly fast, way faster than that fireball is going.
Another thing is that the "fireball" seems to be losing parts, I'm not sure if missile trails leave puffs of flames behind, but this one looks like it did. Having flaming pieces fall off from a plane would look like that.
Particularly at this time, I wouldn't trust random sources on the web to provide accurate information about events.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/iran-plane-cras...
[1] (Ukrainian) https://nv.ua/ukr/ukraine/politics/aviakatastrofa-v-tegerani...
Come on. Don't do this.
Planes are complex machines. They're pressurized and propelled by a continuous explosion. There are lots of ways for things to go wrong.
A good rule of thumb in aviation is to ignore the first 24 hours of news. There are no facts. Everyone is an armchair crash investigator. And mindshare is competed for with salaciousness.
It could be an attack. It could be an air-defense error. Or it could be a mechanical error. One of countless possible mechanical errors. Either way, it's a tragedy to which no service is done by baseless speculation.
It's intellectually dishonest, particularly when baseless speculation is framed by an "it looks like."
It crowds out fact-driven discussion.
It's disrespectful and potentially hurtful.
It could be mistaken for informed commentary, in which case it's misleading. (When I’ve done it, the first victim is myself.)
And to top it off, it's useless. Totally useless. Nobody walks away with a deeper understanding. No new perspectives. Just screaming into a void.
Observations are useful. Even mistaken ones.
Saying "It looks like..." is stating a fact. What else is someone supposed to say if that’s what it looks like to them?
It doesn't crowd out "fact-driven discussion".
It's not disrespectful or potentially harmful.
Anything could be mistaken, even empirical evidence. Even what you think is a fact...can be wrong.
> And to top it off, it's useless. Totally useless. Nobody walks away with a deeper understanding. No new perspectives. Just screaming into a void.
That's you. You're being ridiculous. You're over-reacting. You haven't produced any evidence to backup your opinion that speculation is harmful or crowds out your so-called "fact-driven" discussion, or that what is said here on HN has any effect whatsoever on anything going on with this story. Just stop it.
I don't know. And I don't have to know.
Just because one can't come up with a value-adding comment doesn't require the content be censored. Nor does it mean the void should be filled with nonsense.
See also: https://dartcenter.org/blog/skeptics-guide-to-media-coverage...
Are there situations where pulling the fire handle to extinguish a fire or shutting down an engine wouldn’t be adequate to alleviate some sort of grave failure?
It's an unlikely thing to happen today, or ever, but it would certainly account for the rapid crash.
Of course if you have a whole wing on fire pulling the engine fire extinguisher isn't going to help much. Luckily that doesn't really happen.
https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/628650-ukrainian-aircraf...
My interpretation is that this is the Iranian regime falling apart.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-crash-engine/engine-...
The fallout / propaganda from this is certainly going to be interesting. Either Iranian air defense / Russian arms is unreliable or another nail in the coffin for Boeing. I wonder what's Ukraine's angle in all this in context of Trump drama. Is this an deescalation signal (at the request of whom?) or are they trying to burn Trump / Boeing. The amount of intersecting interest is staggering.
Presumably US/Russia/ everyone in the region is watching Iranians skies very carefully post retaliation, if there's signs of the plane was shot down, it would be easy to confirm. If there's no signs, then it can be quickly dismissed as technical error to deescalate an already confusing situation.
Social media is already promoting baseless conspiracy theories.
Traditionally, one gathered facts and then communicated. But the world isn't waiting. And those rumors can have real consequences. So coming out with incomplete, preliminary information is better than giving the idiots a monopoly on messaging.
Well the idiot in this situation is the Ukrainian embassy. Official diplomatic declaration is very different from idiots on social media spinning yarn. I'm not saying people aren't jumping to conclusions, just recognizing that hasty official statements to plane crashes is atypical, though current events are atypical.
There is no way anyone can know cause of the crash unless if it was shot down or bombed (in that case the missile comanders and/or terrorists would know).
There's enough surveillance on Iranian airspace after the missile launches that every state-actor with the capability in the region should be able to determine whether the plane was shot down.
Iran declaring it a "technical defect" after just a few hours is not enough to rule out a accidental missile shoot or similar.
People on edge make mistakes, and this plane was not flying on schedule which could have been what caused them to misidentify the plane. In a normal situation they'd investigate but this was not a normal situation.
Similar thing happened in Feb 2019 when Indian Air Force shot down their own helicopter during a high alert scenario after attacking targets in Pakistan day before.
[1] Use Adblocker: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/iaf-chopper-budgam-c...
Things to consider:
1. Iran launched an attack on US bases, their AA forces were on alert
2. Flight was delayed for over an hour, this could potentially appear as an unknown aircraft to an on edge AA crew (if they are operating the missiles each day, they know the routine flights)
3. 737s don't fall out from the sky in a fireball
4. Iran immediately reported that it crashed down due to "technical difficulties". I'd expect them to claim that US shot it down if they didn't know better.
5. Pilot didn't report a thing
6. Transponder data suddenly cut off.
7. Plane was climbing and could have appeared suddenly to AA positioned behind a ridge/mountain (from what I gather, Tehran is surrounded by mountains).
In my opinion, it's almost certainly an explosion on the plane. It may be a bomb (unlikely in my opinion) or a missile. Given the heated nature of the situation it's much more likely to be human error on the missile battery than it is to be an unrelated explosion of an 737 while climbing out of Tehran.
You can make this same argument every time a flaw in an airplane is found for the first time.
"The 737 MAX doesn't just dive itself into the ocean."
Right now, looking at the wreckage field it looks like it completely fall apart mid air. Lot of wreckage seems to have shrapnel damage of roughly the same size.
- After reading the comments.
As we have seen with other Boeing crashes, Boeing will blame everyone else before admitting anything.
Iran for sure won't admit it if they shot it down by mistake and if the US shot it down they wouldn't admit it either.
This way there's no need to dig any deeper.
So there is more to this crash than just an engine fire, or simple "pilot error"
Yes, here's one (on an A300) where pilot error while operating the rudder sheared off the vertical stabilizer and caused a crash:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587
There were reports of an explosion/fire in the air, as the plane pulled itself apart.
> The crash was witnessed by hundreds of people, 349 of whom gave accounts of what they saw to the NTSB. About half (52%) reported a fire or explosion before the plane hit the ground. Others stated that they saw a wing detach from the aircraft, when in fact it was the vertical stabilizer.
It is unlikely to be a design issue, that should have come out a long time ago. Having said that it is simply too early for anyone to know what happened here.
But if the footage is real it was not a malfunction. Planes don't catch in fire in the air like that.
But not sure if the footage is old rehashed footage yet or not.
Recent 737-800 had two accidents confirmed to be caused by disintegrating compressor (or was it fan itself?).
It was hit or was part of a large explosions of some kind.
"the images coming out of Tehran of the downed Ukrainian 737-800 looks to have frag damage." https://twitter.com/LostWeapons/status/1214803481782915072
If it was a accident, it seems something we have not seen the likes of. Engine failure fits though, with multiple mistakes.
Given it was during a war, it more likely fits it was part of that war.
BTW, blade disks disintegrating had, in past, done things like completely cut all steering other than ailerons, and other "nice" damage.