Aeroflot defies sanctions to create new low-cost airline

Russian flag carrier Aeroflot will create a new low-cost unit after Western sanctions grounded its first effort to enter the market, the airline's chief executive said on Sunday (Aug 24).

"We will after all register a new airline," Aeroflot chief executive Vitaly Savelyev was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. He said the company's low-cost carrier, Dobrolyot, had worked well during the six weeks it was allowed to operate.

Dobrolyot was forced to shut down because it flew to Russian-annexed Crimea and was therefore hit by EU sanctions imposed over the Kremlin's alleged support for pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine, including the cancellation of the leasing contracts for its Boeing aircraft.

"We are holding talks with leasing companies and the first steps show that they want to work with us," said Savelyev. He said possible routes were still being worked out, but that the new airline could begin operations from the end of October when the winter schedule begins.

Savelyev said flights to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in March, would depend on demand. Services to the popular Black Sea summer resort are usually cut back during the winter months.

New fuel-efficient jets are key to the success of low-cost airlines as the high cost of fuel often makes it their biggest expense. Leasing allows new airlines the opportunity to acquire aircraft more quickly without huge up-front investments.

Dobrolyot, which operated two Boeing 737-800 aircraft when it was forced to shut down, had planned to lease another six this year to begin flying to a handful of Russian cities.

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Russian airlines resume flights to Israel

Russia's second-largest airline Transaero said Thursday (July 24) it was resuming flights to Israel, two days after suspending traffic along with other major airlines over security concerns.

"As of today, Transaero will operate all services between Russia and Israel according to schedule," the company said in statement.

Transaero turned around one of its flights to Tel Aviv in mid-air on Tuesday after European aviation authorities cautioned against flying to Ben Gurion International Airport, after a Hamas rocket struck a neighbourhood to the north of the airport.

In the United States, the FAA on Thursday lifted its two-day ban on US airlines flying into or out of Ben Gurion International Airport, Israel's only international hub.

Russia's largest airline, Aeroflot, said late Wednesday it was resuming flights to Israel.

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Malaysian jet with 298 on board crashes in Ukraine

A Malaysian airliner carrying 298 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed on Thursday in strife-torn east Ukraine, with US officials saying it was shot down by a surface-to-air missile.

Ukraine's government said the jet was shot down in a "terrorist act", while comments attributed to a pro-Russia rebel chief suggested his men may have downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by mistake, believing it was a Ukrainian army transport plane.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meanwhile said Kiev bore responsibility for the crash, which came as Ukrainian forces battle pro-Moscow insurgents in the east of the country.

As Malaysian investigators headed to the scene, the UN Security Council called an emergency session on Friday to discuss the disaster -- the second to strike the airline in just four months.

Shocked world leaders called for an international inquiry to determine the causes of a disaster with potentially far-reaching political implications, with Britain demanding a UN-led probe.

There was no sign of survivors at the crash site, where an AFP reporter saw horrific scenes, with dozens of mutilated corpses and body parts strewn through the smouldering wreck of the Boeing 777.

Charred debris stinking of kerosene stretched for kilometres across the rebel-controlled zone in the Donetsk region. A top rebel leader said his forces were prepared to agree to a short ceasefire to allow for the recovery operation.

Shell-shocked locals said the impact felt "like an earthquake" in their village of Grabove, near the Russian border.

"Those poor people," said Natalia, 36. "Do you think they understood a thing about this war in Ukraine -- even we don't understand it."

At Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, from where the ill-fated jet took off, an AFP reporter saw family members in tears, while Dutch television broadcast harrowing images of passports found in the wreck, including those of children.

Europe's flight safety body Eurocontrol said Ukrainian authorities had closed the airspace over the east of the country, after a string of countries advised their carriers to stay away.

In Amsterdam, Malaysia Airlines vice president Huib Gorter said 283 passengers and 15 crew were aboard the plane. That total included 154 Dutch nationals, 27 Australians and 23 Malaysians.

The airline said on Twitter that Ukrainian air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane at 1415 GMT, about four hours into its flight, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the Russia-Ukraine border.

The disaster comes just months after Malaysia's Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8 with 239 on board. That plane diverted from its Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight path and its fate remains a mystery despite a massive multinational aerial and underwater search.

Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Twitter he was "shocked by reports that an MH plane crashed" and announced an "immediate investigation."

Najib later told reporters a team of investigators had been dispatched to Kiev, along with a disaster assistance team.

Europe and US stock markets were sent tumbling by the crash, which escalated tensions fuelled by broadened US and EU sanctions aimed at pressuring Russia to force the rebels in Ukraine's east to end their three-month insurgency that has claimed more than 600 lives.

US President Barack Obama offered assistance to "help determine what happened and why".

Boeing also said it was ready to assist in any way.

The Kremlin said Putin and Obama -- at loggerheads over the new wave of sanctions -- had discussed the crash. Obama later called Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Najib.

Two US officials told AFP that intelligence analysts were reviewing the data to see whether the missile used to down the aircraft was launched by pro-Moscow separatists, Russian troops across the border or Ukrainian government forces.

"We are working through all the analysis," said one official.

But that there was little doubt that the plane was struck by a surface-to-air missile, the official said.

"That's what we strongly believe."

In Detroit, US Vice President Joe Biden said the plane was "apparently... and I say apparently because we don't have all the details yet... shot down. Not an accident. Blown out of the sky."

There were conflicting claims of responsibility after the shocking new development in crisis-torn Ukraine, where fighting between separatists and the Western-backed government has claimed over 600 lives.

Poroshenko's spokesman said he believed pro-Russian insurgents downed the jet.

"This incident is not a catastrophe. It is a terrorist act," the spokesman, Svyatoslav Tsegolko, said on Twitter.

The Ukrainian leader said Kiev's armed forces "did not fire at any targets in the sky" and vowed "those behind this tragedy will be brought to justice".

Rebels in the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic claimed the airline split in two after being shot down by a Ukrainian jet -- which was then shot down in turn.

But a social media site attributed to the top military commander of the Donetsk People's Republic, Igor Strelkov, said the insurgents shot down an army transporter at the exact site of the Malaysia Airlines crash.

The comments suggested separatists targeted the jet in the mistaken belief it was an An-26 Ukrainian army transport plane.

"We just downed an An-26 near Torez. It is down near the Progress mine," said the VK page attributed to Strelkov.

"And here is a video confirming that a 'bird fell'," said the post, providing a link identical to that published by Ukrainian media in reports about the Malaysia Airlines jet.

Alexander Borodai, prime minister of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic", meanwhile told AFP that separatist forces would be ready to commit to a truce for several days to allow full access to the site.

The crash came with tensions already soaring after Kiev accused Russia of downing a Ukrainian military plane on a mission over the east of the country on Wednesday, the first direct claim of a Russian attack on Ukrainian forces.

Russia's defence ministry -- which NATO claims has massed some 12,000 troops along Ukraine's porous border -- dismissed the claim as "absurd", news agencies reported.

The dramatic developments on the ground came alongside the already serious fallout from fresh US and EU sanctions slapped on Russia.

Moscow condemned the measures as "blackmail" and warned of retaliatory action against Washington, which targeted major players in Russia's finance, military and energy sectors in the sanctions.

In eastern Ukraine, fierce fighting has intensified in recent days with some 55 civilians killed since the weekend, as efforts to revive talks on a ceasefire between Kiev and the rebels falter.

Ukrainian forces made a string of major gains after Poroshenko tore up an unsuccessful truce earlier this month, but progress has slowed since rebels retreated into two major regional centres where they have pledged to fight to the end.

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Airbus says Transaero Airlines plans US$5.3b planes deal

European planemaker Airbus said on Thursday that Transaero, Russia's second-biggest airline, intends to buy 20 of its long-haul A330 aircraft, including a dozen new fuel-efficient neo jets.

Airbus said at the Farnborough airshow that Transaero had committed to buy 20 A330 planes, comprising eight A330ceo (current engine option) and 12 A330neo (new engine option) jets worth a combined $5.3 billion (3.9 billion euros) at list prices.

"This agreement makes Transaero an important launch customer and the first European airline to commit to the A330neo," Airbus said in a statement.

"The A330s will allow Transaero to continue the massive fleet modernization program and to boost its medium and long-haul domestic and international network."

Launched at Farnborough on Monday, the neo plane is a revamped version of the A330 and sports engine upgrades to provide more economical long-haul travel.

Airbus has won 121 commitments for the neo at Farnborough but no firm orders.

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Aeroflot sacks drunk long-haul pilot

Russia's flagship airline Aeroflot said Wednesday it had sacked a pilot after pre-flight checks showed he was drunk ahead of a long-haul internal flight.

"The pilot will be sacked from the company," Aeroflot wrote on Twitter, saying that the pilot's blood alcohol content was measured at 0.8 -- defined as a state of light intoxication.

The level of 0.8 would mean someone has trouble judging distances and focusing in different light conditions as well as having delayed reactions.

Passengers were forced to wait almost 10 hours for their flight from Blagoveshchensk on the Chinese border to Moscow on Tuesday.

The pilot will have to pay all the costs of the delay, Aeroflot said.

Aeroflot stressed that the pilot's condition was identified in pre-flight testing, preventing him from flying.

"We cannot control what a pilot does during his time off," it said.

A drunk navigator with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.81 was implicated when a RusAir plane crashed in 2011 in the northwestern region of Karelia.

Russia has a high number of air crashes involving small regional airlines, but Aeroflot is seen as having a good safety record.

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Russian pilots raise alarm over safety at Aeroflot

A union of Russian pilots at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport on Tuesday accused the country's flagship carrier Aeroflot of endangering passengers' lives by overworking staff in search for profit.

The Sheremetyevo Cockpit Personnel Association said that Russia's main airline was employing "tired pilots who can fall asleep at any moment."

"Because of Aeroflot's greed, the safety of citizens is in grave doubt," the association said in a statement.

The company did not address the union's complaint directly when contacted by AFP. But its press service said by email that "our passengers' and flight safety are top priorities of Aeroflot".

Russia's small regional airlines are notorious for their poor flight safety record.

The airlineratings.com flight tracker said Russia witnessed the world's worst crash of 2013 when 50 died in a Tatarstan Airlines Boeing 737 that exploded on landing in November in the Volga River city of Kazan.

Yet state-controlled Aeroflot is believed to have the best record in the country.

The planecrashinfo.com site said Aeroflot has had only one deadly accident in more than a decade - a 2008 crash that killed 88 and was later blamed on a drunken pilot - and the carrier has recently taken huge steps to improve its often mocked image.

The company has in fact been flying high since adopting improved standards once it joined the SkyTeam alliance in 2006.

It has scooped up several awards for eastern European service in the process and SkyTeam now calls Aeroflot's fleet "one of the most modern, youngest and fastest-growing... in Europe."

The national flag carrier this year also burnished its image by becoming the official carrier of the Manchester United football club.

Yet its share of the Russian market has been eroded by cheaper local rivals and now stands at just 40 per cent - a far cry from the days in the Soviet era when it proclaimed itself the world's largest airline.

The airline's statement noted that "Aeroflot was the first Russian carrier to enter the (International Air Transport Association's) Operational Safety Audit Registry, and has confirmed the certificate for the fifth time in 2013."

But the pilots accuse it of failing to compensate them fairly for night flights and thousands of hours of overtime.

The dispute stretches back several years and has resulted in a July Moscow City Court ruling for Aeroflot to pay out debts owed to pilots over 17 months.

The airline has contested the ruling, and the union has since seen three of its leaders jailed on disputed and still unproven embezzlement charges.

The pilots blame the arrest on Aeroflot management's attempts to discredit their cause.

The dispute has even seen the pilots send a letter of complaint to Russian President Vladimir Putin that has thus far gone unanswered.

Their cause has also been picked up by the London-based International Transport Workers' Federation and the International Trade Union Confederation - the world's largest labour organisation.

"While aviation companies in Russia have posted record profits, flight crews have been reduced and aviation infrastructure continues to decay," the International Transport Workers' Federation said in a letter of support for the Russian pilots last month.

"That is why the safety standards and infrastructure are still in a very poor situation," the letter said.

Aeroflot reported a 15 per cent year-on-year jump in passenger numbers and an 84 per cent increase in profit to $545 million (400 million euros) for the first nine months of 2013.

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Nine die in Russian plane crash

A Russian cargo plane crashed into a military warehouse complex in Siberia on Thursday, killing all nine people on board, the emergencies ministry said.

The Antonov An-12 military transport plane, carrying cargo from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, crashed into storage warehouses at a military unit near Irkutsk, also in Siberia.

The emergencies ministry said there were nine people on board: six crew and three people accompanying the cargo.

"They all died," it said in a statement.

No injuries were reported among the military personnel on the ground.

A fire broke out at the crash site but was quickly put out, ministry spokesman Andrei Shutov, who visited the site, told AFP. No buildings caught fire, he added.

More than 100 rescue workers were combing through the debris.

The plane belonged to the Irkutsk aviation plant.

Russia has experienced a string of deadly air crashes in recent years, usually involving small and poorly regulated regional airlines that sprang up across Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

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Russia fears that some pilots have fake licenses

Russian investigators are searching the state aviation agency to see if some pilots may have fake licenses — part of an investigation into a plane crash last month that killed all 50 people on board.

Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said in a statement today (Dec 6) that investigators believe some pilots working for Russian airlines have received fake licenses in centres certified by the aviation agency.

Mr Markin said there were reasons to believe that the pilot who sent the Boeing 737 into a near-vertical dive after an aborted first landing attempt had received his license illegally in a small training centre that was no longer functioning.

No criminal charges have been filed yet in the crash, which took place in the city of Kazan, 720km east of Moscow.

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Russia could ban planes older than 20 years after crash

Russian lawmakers on Wednesday called for a ban on planes built more than 20 years ago after a 23-year-old Boeing 737 operated by a regional airline crashed, killing all 50 passengers and crew.

Five lawmakers from the ruling party United Russia submitted amendments that would introduce a ban on "using civilian aircraft that were produced more than 20 years ago to carry out commercial flights."

The latest deadly crash in Russia when a Tatarstan Airlines plane nose-dived and burst into flames Sunday has once again prompted anger over Russia's dire safety record, with most accidents occurring on internal flights run by small regional airlines.

"One of the main problems of civil aviation in Russia is the exceptionally high age of the aircraft," the lawmakers wrote in an explanatory note to the bill.

"According to official statistics, as of 2011, (the average) was around 21 years old," they said.

The law would enter into force in 2017 to give airlines time to update their fleets, they added.

The plane that crashed on Sunday was issued in 1990 and had previously operated routes in Africa and Brazil, where it underwent major repairs, before being bought by the Russian airline.

The reason for the crash remained unclear. The plane fell almost vertically short off the runway while making a second attempt to land in the Volga city of Kazan.

Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee, which investigates all crashes, said Wednesday that they had found the sound recordings of the crew's last minutes on the plane.

Russia's powerful Investigative Committee has opened a criminal probe into a suspected breach of air safety rules.

Investigations have pinned the ban for recent deadly air crashes on pilot error rather than technical failures.

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Passenger jet crashes in Russia, killing 50

A Boeing 737 operated by a Russian airline crashed on Sunday while attempting to land in the city of Kazan, killing all 50 on board, Russia's emergency situations ministry said.

"According to preliminary information, all the people on board the flight, 44 passengers and six crew members, were killed," a ministry spokeswoman told AFP.

"The Boeing 737 that flew out of Moscow's Domodedovo airport with 44 passengers crashed onto the runway at Kazan airport on landing and burst into flames," Russia's Investigative Committee, which probes serious incidents, said in a statement.

The emergency situations ministry posted photographs of fragments of the plane scattered across the runway of the airport in Kazan, which is around 720 kilometres (450 miles) east of Moscow.

The plane, owned by Tatarstan Airlines, was making a second attempt to land, the spokesman for Russia's civil aviation authority, Sergei Izvolsky, told the Interfax news agency.

"We know for sure that when the plane tried to make a second landing, for some reason, the plane hit the surface of the runway near the air traffic control tower, as a result of which the plane crashed and burnt."

The plane's black boxes have not yet been found, Izvolsky said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his "deep condolences to the relatives and loved ones of those who died in the plane crash at Kazan airport," the Kremlin said in a statement.

"After receiving a report on the air crash, the head of state ordered the government to urgently form a commission to investigate the reasons and circumstances of what happened."

The emergency ministry published a list of the names of 44 victims, while saying that six were still being identified. The airline named the chief pilot as 47-year-old Rustem Salikhov.

Among the dead was the 24-year-old son of the leader of the Tatarstan region where Kazan is located, Irek Minnikhanov, the RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing the region's deputy prime minister.

The airline named an 11-year-old girl, Darya Artashina, as among those on the flight.

The head of the region's FSB security service, General-Lieutenant Alexander Antonov, also died in the crash, a member of the disaster management team told RIA Novosti.

The Investigative Committee said an inquiry had been opened to determine whether there had been any "violation of aviation security rules" and added that several inspectors had been sent to the scene of the crash.

"Investigators are looking at different versions of what happened including a technical problem, pilot error and unfavourable weather conditions," it said.

"According to preliminary information all 50 bodies of the victims were found at the scene of the crash," said an official at the local emergency medical centre.

The plane, which had been flying since 1990, had last year made an emergency landing at the same airport, Russian television reported.

Its owner, the Tatarstan Airlines, in a brief statement on its website said that "the circumstances are being clarified."

The airline, founded in 2000, has a fleet of eight planes, including two Boeing-737s.

The Life News website reported that the plane had originally been flown by Air France before being operated by airlines in Uganda, Brazil, Romania and Bulgaria.

Tatarstan Airlines bought the plane in 2008, Life News reported.

Air safety in Russia is a major issue for the authorities following a severe deterioration in the quality of domestic services after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Officials blame most problems on pilot inexperience as well as poor maintenance by the small and poorly regulated airlines that have sprung up across Russia in the past two decades.

Kazan is the capital city of the Russian republic of Tatarstan, which has a large Muslim population and is seen as an example of peaceful integration of different ethnic groups.

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Russian airline "failed to train pilots" of crashed plane

The Russian airline owned by media mogul Alexander Lebedev failed to ensure that the pilots of a plane that crash-landed in December underwent emergency simulator training, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Russia's aviation agency has already suspended the operations of the Red Wings airline after one of its aircraft careered off the runway of a Moscow airport on December 29 and smashed into a highway.

Five crew members were killed and further loss of life was only prevented by the fact that the plane was flying without passengers.

"An enquiry has established that the crew did not undertake training on a flight simulator concerning warning systems about the approach of the ground and a collision," Moscow region first deputy transport prosecutor Murad Kekhlerov said, quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency.

He said that the company had been informed it had violated Russian law. Investigators had previously said that the most likely explanation for the crash was bad brakes or a misfiring reverse engine.

Lebedev however rejected the latest findings, accusing the Moscow prosecutor of not knowing what he was talking about as such flight simulators were not available in Russia.

"Prosecutor Kekhlerov does not know that the simulators which exist in Russia do not simulate this situation. With (the federal air transport agency's) permission we carried out the (pilot) training in the cockpit (of a plane)," Lebedev wrote on Twitter.

The Red Wings catastrophe is another legal headache for Lebedev, who part-owns Russia's most critical opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta and whose son Evgeny Lebedev owns Britain's The Independent and Evening Standard newspapers.

He is also facing charges of assault and hooliganism for a bizarre attack where he punched a fellow Russian tycoon during a televised talk show.

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Simulator training absent? No such simulated situation in the simulators in Russia? Time to play the blame game.

Bad brakes cited in Moscow jet crash

Russian investigators on Sunday blamed a defective brake system for a Moscow airport crash that killed four crew members when a liner careened off the runway and smashed into a highway.

Rescue workers recovered the flight recorders from the four-year-old Tu-204 of tycoon Alexander Lebedev's Red Wings airlines late Saturday as Russia began mourning its latest post-Soviet crash fatalities.

"The plane touched down in the proper landing area but for some reason was unable to stop on the strip," Federal Air Transport Agency chief Alexander Neradko said in televised remarks.

"According to preliminary data, the pilots used all the brake systems available on the plane," an unidentified source in the inquiry team told the Interfax news agency.

"But for some reason, the machine failed to stop and continued moving" down the runway. "Most likely, the cause was defective reverse engines or brakes."

A bigger loss of life was only averted because the 210-seat liner was empty except for eight crew on their return from a charter flight to the Czech Republic.

Cell phone footage of the accident posted online showed chunks of debris hurtling over the highway and crashing into cars whose drivers had to swerve and make emergency stops.

The jet split into three pieces and required the temporary shutdown of both the Kiev Highway and Vnukovo -- Moscow's third largest airport and the site of a special terminal for Kremlin officials.

Red Wings owner Lebedev -- a billionaire famous for his critical view of the Kremlin and his ownership of the London Evening Standard and The Independent in Britain -- said the jet had recently passed a meticulous check.

"Plane number 47 had accumulated 8,500 flight hours and underwent its last serious check on November 23," Lebedev tweeted.

He also suggested that traffic controllers' initial refusal to authorise landing -- requiring the plane to complete several circles over Vnukovo -- may have been a contributing factor.

"All machinery has its limits, even when it is new," Lebedev wrote.

Russian media said the authorities had concerns about the Tu-204 jet's ability to stop in various weather conditions even before Saturday's crash landing.

They cited a letter sent by the state aviation watchdog Rosaviatsya to the jet's maker on Friday asking about an incident last week in which the engines failed to fire into reverse on landing.

The manoeuvre is required for the plane to slow down quickly upon touchdown.

The russianplanes.net aviation website said the very same jet had suffered an engine failure and was forced to make an emergency landing in June 2009.

Smoke could be seen coming out of the Tupolev's right engine after Saturday's incident.

Russianplanes.net said Lebedev's airline had in fact decided not to order any more Tu-204 planes after the 2009 episode because of the engine problems.

The latest line of Tupolev jets were developed in the late Soviet era as the preferred replacement for the workhorse Tu-154 liner that still dominates Russian skies.

But only 50 or so of the more modern versions of Tupolev are in operation because of slow orders and continuing efforts to modernise the jet's engines.

The planes that do fly are most often used by charter companies -- both private and those belonging to the state.

A spokesman for the Russian Football Union said the national squad used the plane that crashed on Saturday for its flights to away matches in 2009-2010.

One photograph published online showed the Russian Football Union's insignia appearing on one of the segments of the plane's debris.

Russia has experienced a recent surge of air accidents caused by ageing equipment and poor maintenance work conducted by small and largely unregulated airlines that now dot the vast country.

The emergencies ministry says that some 200 Russians have died in air disasters in the past two years alone.

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Thank god it's not a fully loaded plane, but that being said, my condolences to the four crew-members who lost their lives when the plane broke into three pieces. It's also quite fortunate that no casualty outside of the plane was involved as a highway was affected pretty severely by the crash.

As you can see, a small malfunction in a small part of a plane is enough to causes such accidents. So was it a wheel brake failure or a reverse thrust failure, or both? Both will require hydraulics to work and the key in finding out the cause of failure is to head in to the  hydraulic system.

Indonesia blames pilot error for plane crash that killed 45

Indonesian investigators blamed pilot error on Tuesday for a Sukhoi Superjet crash that killed all 45 onboard an exhibition flight that slammed into a Javanese volcano in May.

The National Transport Safety Committee (KNKT) found that the terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS) was functioning and that the pilot had switched it off before the crash.

"The TAWS had sent a 'terrain ahead' warning before the crash, followed by six 'avoid terrain' warnings. The pilot in command switched the TAWS off as he assumed there was a database problem," KNKT chief Tatang Kurniadi said.

He said there was a "diversion of attention" in the cockpit before the Sukhoi Superjet 100 crashed into the 7,200-foot (2,200-metre) dormant Mount Salak volcano.

"The crash could have been avoided if a recovery action was carried out within 24 seconds from the first warning," he told reporters.

The flight was scheduled to be a 40-minute hop to showcase the new Russian plane to prospective buyers in Indonesia, where the aviation industry is booming.

The Superjet accident was taken as a blow to the Russian aviation industry, which was hoping the twin-engine plane, the first new civilian aircraft built in post-Soviet Russia, would improve its image.

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It's unfortunate to see such accidents happen as it is totally avoidable. Being an airline pilot, whatever decision you make affects the lives sitting behind you. For this case, the complacency of the pilot cost his own life as well as those with him in the aircraft.

Apparently he switched off the TAWS as he assumed the database is outdated and there is no terrain ahead. Well perhaps there wasn't much preparation done before flight and coupling with the pilot's unfamiliarity of the area, the tragic disaster happened.