Russian investigators have started analysing the flight recorders from the Red Wings Tupolev Tu-204 which crashed adjacent to a highway while attempting to land at Moscow Vnukovo.
The recorders were handed over to the Interstate Aviation Committee hours after the 29 December crash in which four people were killed.
 |
|---|
Copyright: Ivan Sekretarev - PA |
Nose sections of the aircraft have been removed to a hangar used by the VARZ-400 maintenance company at Vnukovo.
The Interstate Aviation Committee adds that it is examining the weather conditions and the state of the runway at the time of the accident.
Video images of the crash captured by an in-car camera show a high-energy impact which threw debris into traffic on the westbound carriageway of the highway, including a wheel which struck a vehicle.
Russia's emergency situations ministry says the aircraft - which had been arriving after a ferry flight from Pardubice, with only eight occupants - crashed through a fence on landing at Vnukovo, before its fuselage broke up and its starboard engine caught fire.
Red Wings says the aircraft underwent maintenance on 14 December at the VARZ-400 facility, and that the Tu-204 had logged 8,672h in 2,482 cycles.
Its captain had accumulated 14,500h, the airline adds, with more than 3,000h on the Tu-204.
Both pilots as well as a flight engineer and one of the cabin crew were killed in the accident, while the other four occupants were badly injured.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
