Plane From Dubai Crashes at Russian Airport, Killing 62

[Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu]

Plane From Dubai Crashes at Russian Airport, Killing 62

• Dubai were killed, and a list of victims was published on the website of the Rostov regional government. Vasily Golubev, the governor of the Rostov region, said strong winds appeared to have caused the crash, but an investigation was just beginning. Rostov-on-Don is about 600 miles south of Moscow.
  
  Both of the plane’s flight data recorders were recovered, the Russian Investigative Committee, a law enforcement agency, said. In a statement on its website, the agency listed “crew error, technical failure, adverse weather conditions and other factors” as possible reasons for the crash.
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  The airliner was operated by the Dubaibudget carrier FlyDubai, which confirmed that the plane had crashed on landing and that none of the passengers had survived. Forty-four of the passengers were Russian, eight were Ukrainian, two were Indian and one was a citizen of Uzbekistan, the airline said.
  
  “We are doing everything that we can to help those who have been affected,” the airline’s chief executive, Ghaith al-Ghaith, said in a video posted on Facebook.
  
  The crash occurred at 3:42 a.m. as the plane was making its second attempt to land, Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said. After missing its first approach, the plane entered a holding pattern for two hours as it waited for the weather to improve.
  
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  Relatives of the victims of the crash at the airport in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. CreditAssociated Press
  On the second landing attempt, a wing of the plane struck the ground, and the aircraft began to break apart and burn, the statement said.
  
  Based on the preliminary information made available by the Russian authorities, aviation safety experts said a sudden change in wind speed or direction — a phenomenon known as wind shear — might have contributed to the crash.
  
  “If the wing did strike the ground, it would indicate a loss of stability at the very least, which could be the result of wind shear,” said John J. Goglia, an aviation safety consultant and a former member of United States National Transportation Safety Board. While wind shear can occur at all stages of flight, it is most dangerous during takeoff and landing, when the plane is “low and slow,” Mr. Goglia said.
  
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  Emergency workers at the crash site at Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on Saturday.CreditRussia Emergency Ministry, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
  The Interfax news agency quoted Mr. Golubev, the regional governor, as saying the plane had crashed short of the runway. “With all likelihood, the strongly gusting wind, approaching a hurricane level, was the cause of the air crash,” Interfax quoted Mr. Golubev as saying.
  
  Gusts reached 43 miles per hour at the time of the crash, according to the Flightradar24 website, which said there had also been light rain.
  
  The Rostov-on-Don airport is scheduled to be closed next year, after a new one farther from the city center is completed. The airport served just over two million passengers last year.
  
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  Journalists watched the news of the plane crash at the Rostov-on-Don airport in Russia on Saturday. CreditReuters
  A well-known Russian pilot, Andrei Litvinov, said Saturday on Russian television that the airport lacked advanced navigation equipment that would make the landing procedure easier for pilots.
  
  President Vladimir V. Putin expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, according to a statement on the Kremlin’s website. Mr. Golubev declared Sunday a day of mourning, Interfax said.
  
  FlyDubai’s website said the plane could seat up to 189 people. The airline said 33 of the passengers were women and four were children. The seven crew members were from Cyprus, Spain, the Seychelles, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan and Russia, according to the Emergency Situations Ministry’s updated list.
  
  The Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement online that it had set up a team of at least 50 investigators to look into the crash.
  
  FlyDubai has grown rapidly since it was founded by the Dubai government in 2008, becoming one of the largest low-cost carriers in the Middle East. Its chairman, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, also heads theEmirates airline, but the two operate as separate businesses.
  
  Before Saturday, FlyDubai had never recorded a fatal accident. Its most serious safety threat occurred in January 2015 when one of its planes wasstruck by gunfire while landing at Baghdad International Airport.
  
  Nicola Clark contributed reporting from Paris.
  
  Source.http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/w...ashes-at-russian-airport-killing-62.html?_r=0