Pilot Salnikov: «The situation on board seems to have developed rapidly»
A transcript of the radio communications between the crew of the Sukhoi Superjet 100, which crashed on Friday in the Moscow region, and the ground controller appeared online on July 13. Experts assessed their reliability as high. However, the radio communications, unfortunately, provided little information about what happened on board the plane at 12:28 Moscow time on July 12. A pilot with 40 years of experience, Vladimir Salnikov, believes that the recording of the conversations raises more questions than answers.
The recording concerns the last minutes of the plane's flight. Moreover, the crew does not report any emergencies on board. On the contrary, he calmly asks the dispatcher for the course to Vnukovo and the permitted altitude. The controller gives the go-ahead to climb to an altitude of 10 thousand feet, which is about 3 km, and proceed to the airport area.
But then communication with the aircraft is lost, and the crew does not respond to numerous requests from the controller.
After This is why the dispatcher asks the nearest aircraft to see if a “superjet” is visible nearby.
“This is a normal conversation between the crew and the dispatcher,” pilot Vladimir Salnikov tells MK. — It doesn’t foretell anything. The recording shows that the aircraft commander agreed on how to fly and what altitude to gain.
Then, apparently, everything went so abnormal that the crew could not even convey anything to the dispatcher. And, as I understand it, if the distress signal had been turned on, then all the dispatchers at the Moscow air hub would have immediately displayed that such and such an aircraft had given an emergency signal. Here, it turns out, this did not happen.
Therefore, the dispatcher asked two other aircraft to look and call the Superjet. If there was something emergency, he would say that the board is in emergency condition, look, help and something else. But there is nothing of this in the negotiations.
— There may be different versions. For example, some kind of instant explosion on an airplane when the crew could not do anything. I don’t know what could have exploded.
Even if the engine explodes, it is still made in such a way that it comes off the pylon and flies down. I wouldn't rule out a terrorist attack. I think the investigation will sort it out.
— Yes, they are asking for ten thousand feet, that’s about three thousand meters. This means they were flying even lower. This is not ten kilometers, where explosive depressurization is really possible…