Russian plane crash | Pilots failed to switch on a heating unit, says inquiry
The pilots of the Russian airliner, which crashed on February 11, have been blamed for the accident. According to the investigators, the pilots failed to switch on a heating unit, which led the speed sensors to ice up and provide wrong information.
“A factor in the development of a special situation in the flight could be the wrong data about flight speed on pilots’ indicators which was likely due to iced pitot tubes (speed probes) while their heating systems were shut off,” The New York Post quoted the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee as saying.
“A special situation began to develop about two minutes and 30 seconds after the takeoff at an altitude of around 1,300 meters and the indicator speed of 465-470 km/h,” the committee added.
The flight recorders captured varying data from the plane?s two airspeed sensors, which is a result of the pilots’ failure to turn on the heating unit for the pressure measurement equipment prior to takeoff.
Before the plane slammed into the ground, one of the sensors continued to show a speed of 0 kmh while the other showed a speed of 800 kmh.
The Russian Interstate Aviation Committee, however, still needs to analyse the voice recorder that captured conversations in …read more
