A Flydubai Boeing-737-800 has crashed during landing in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. All the passengers and crew on board have been killed.
21 March 2016
The runway in Rostov-on-Don airport, which was damaged in the Flydubai Boeing crash, has been fully restored, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry announced.
20 March 2016
The quality of data on the FZ981 flight recorder is good, deputy chief of the Interstate Aviation Committee Sergey Zaiko said, RIA Novosti reports. He also said that information had successfully been copied, adding that the flight recorder had been functioning until the plane hit the ground.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has established contact with all families of the foreign passengers who were on flight of FZ981, RIA Novosti reports. Family members of Ukrainian and Kyrgyz victims have already arrived in Rostov-on-Don. Other relatives are expected to appear at the beginning of next week.
Mourners gather outside the Russian embassy in Kiev on Sunday to pay tribute to the 62 victims of the crashed FlyDubai flight FZ981. People lay flowers and lit candles outside the embassy, where the exterior wall was adorned with items of condolence.
Memory chips in the crashed Boeing's flight recorder appear to have survived, a source in the rescue operation told Interfax.
Rostov-on-Don Airport has dispatched two planes without passengers and plans for a possible lift-off of four others, a deputy governor told the media.
The authorities have managed to contact the families of all the people that died in the Boeing crash. The next-of-kin of one Ukrainian passenger could not personally go to Rostov-on-Don and sent a legal representative instead, RIA Novosti cited a source as saying.
The flight recorders of the crashed Boeing airliner have been seriously damaged in the crash, the Interstate Aviation Committee reported. Specialists will determine whether transcribing them is possible.
The Russian aviation regulator says it has invited officials from the United Arab Emirates, the US, France and the countries, which lost their citizens in the Flight FZ 981 crash, to take part in the transcription of the flight recorders.
Identification of the bodies recovered from the crash site may take up to two weeks, Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov said. Forensic medics have already started the work, he added.
Emergency service teams continue to sift through the wreckage of the crashed FlyDubai flight FZ981 at Rostov-on-Don Airport on Sunday morning.
On Sunday evening, construction works to repair the damaged runway will begin at Rostov-on-Don Airport, Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov announced. The work is expected to take about 10 hours, so the airport will be fully operational by Monday morning.
Fourteen people representing FlyDubai have arrived in Rostov-on-Don to tackle issues such as compensation and insurance payments after the crash of the airline’s plane, Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov said.
The search for debris of the crashed Boeing plane will be completed in less than an hour, a deputy head for the search and rescue operation told journalists. The area of the search is 11,000 square meters.
Over a dozen of inspectors from the Interstate Aviation Committee, the international body tasked with the investigation of the plane crash, have arrived in Rostov-on-Don, the region’s government reported.
FlyDubai has said it would pay hardship payments to the families of the passengers of Flight FZ 981 amounting to $20,000 per passenger. The airline said its immediate priority is to identify and contact them and provide support.
While the preliminary information from the flight data recorder and the flight voice recorder can be extracted quite quickly, the “meaning of the data will take a little bit over to summarize,” aviation security expert Richard Bloom told RT.
“What we need to do is collect data environmental factors...and then technical and mechanical aspects of the aircraft, and then various aspects of the people flying the plane – psychological, training and otherwise,” Bloom explained. “You put all of that together along with the safety record of the aircraft, safety records of the airlines. So you have multi-model data. You analyse it with multiple means, gradually you come up with an appropriate conclusion.”
“What might have happened is that a perfectly good aircraft with perfectly well trained people have crashed because of an unexpected meteorological anomaly. Maybe a very very strong gust of wind might have helped the aircraft go off course.”
The flight data by FlightRadar “suggests that this aircarft was trying to take off again, in other words aborting the landing for the second time,” security expert Charles Shoebridge told RT. “As the aircraft tried to climb back into the sky, it fell violently and crashed.”
“It has been confirmed that this descent was at a very sharp angle... but it does seem strange that the plane should almost literally fall out of the sky,” Shoebridge added, noting that “it may suggest some degree of mechanical defect.”
Shoebridge however also does not rule out the tragedy could be a result of a human error after long journey and two hours of holding pattern, or even a mistake by the air traffic controllers “who decided to allow this to continue despite the weather.”
It is unusual for an aircraft to circle for two extra hours, while other planes were diverting much sooner or landing safely, independent aviation analyst Alex Macheras told RT, adding however that it is always up to the pilot to decide whether to make another landing attempt or divert.
“There wasn’t great weather last night in the area... nothing too dangerous that would for example close the airport, so the airport was within its rights to be taking the arriving aircraft...,” Macheras said.
“And Rostov isn’t the easiest airport to land at on an ordinary day,” he added. “Pilots and flight crew are advised on their charts when landing at the airport to expect severe turbulence and possible windshear in the final moments before touchdown.”
19 March 2016
Flydubai said it will organize a "programme of hardship payments" and transfer $20,000 to each of the victims' families.
"At present, our priority is to identify and contact the families of those lost in today’s tragic accident and provide immediate support to those affected. Flydubai will additionally organize a programme of hardship payments to the families amounting to $20,000 per passenger, in accordance with our Conditions of Carriage, with the aim of addressing immediate financial needs," a Flydubai spokesperson said.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has sent two of their experts to Rostov-on-Don to help their Russian colleagues, an FAA spokesperson told RIA. The experts are to arrive on Sunday.
The Russian Emergencies Ministry says two black boxes have arrived in Moscow, where experts will decipher them.
Indian Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, confirmed the loss of two Indian nationals on Flydubai flight.
Friends and relatives of Flydubai plane crash victims gather at Rostov-on-Don Airport to mourn their loved ones.
“It is horrifying… to travel so far, and die when you’ve almost returned home… It’s terrible!” one woman, whose friend died with her family, told RT.
Another man came to the airport to pay tribute to his former employer. “My former boss, Igor Olegovich Pakus, with his wife, perished here… I worked with him in City Health Department, when he was in charge of it… Here I am to pay my respects… The man was pure gold.”
Speaking at a press conference in Dubai on Saturday, Flydubai CEO Ghaith al-Ghaith expressed his condolences and noted that "the authorities are coordinating to better understand the circumstances" of the Flydubai flight FZ981 crash. "We are doing all we can to take care of the families of the passengers and the Flydubai crew," he also added.
The Interstate Aviation Committee is likely to start analyzing the information from the black boxes on Sunday, the committee’s deputy head Sergey Zaiko said.
“We hope that if tomorrow everything goes as planned and our schedule isn’t disrupted, we will start deciphering the information from the black boxes. Foreign experts will hopefully join us as well,” Zaiko said.
The main stage of the investigation has come to an end. The bodies of the people killed in the crash have been sent for examination, Russian Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov told a briefing at the crash site in Rostov-on-Don.
“According to preliminary information, the Boeing fell vertically, practically nose-diving into the ground. The debris was dispersed a short distance. And the fragments are small,” a source at the emergency service said.
Seventeen of the 62 people killed in the plane crash were foreign citizens, Victor Yatsutsenko, head of EMERCOM National Crisis Management Centre, confirmed during a press statement in Moscow.
“Eleven of the 55 passengers were citizens of foreign states and their names have already been identified. Six of seven crew members were also citizens of foreign states,” Yatsutsenko said.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has joined Chancellor Angela Merkel in offering condolences to the Russian government, relatives and friends of those killed in the crash, the ministry’s press service reported.
The plane crash site experienced a very rare natural phenomenon – the so-called jet stream with wind speeds exceeding 100 km/h, close to hurricane force, an expert from the FOBOS weathercast center told the RBC news channel.
In a telephone conversation Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart Pavlo Klimkin expressed condolences to each other over the deaths in the plane crash and agreed to cooperate, according to a statement posted on Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry official website. The staff of Ukraine’s consulate-general in Rostov-On-Don and relatives will get access to the bodies of the Ukrainians killed in the plane crash, it added.
Lamberto Zannier, head of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), has expressed sympathy over the plane crash in Rostov-on-Don.
Forensic identification of FZ981 passengers might start as early as Saturday, Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov announced.
The Russian Emergency Ministry reports that over 850 specialists from various organizations are currently working at the crash site, along with 170 vehicles and hardware units. Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov said earlier that repairs to the airstrip in Rostov-on-Don would take at least 10 hours.
Contact has been established with relatives of 47 out of the 55 passengers on FlyDubai flight FZ981, the governor of the Rostov region Vasily Golubev reported.
The relatives of the foreign citizens that died in the crash would be granted Russian visas using a simplified procedure, Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov told media.
FlyDubai total insurance cover exceeds $500 million. "This money is enough to pay compensation to relatives of the victims," TASS cited Russian Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov as telling media. FlyDubai was insured by the Emirates' companies, and had been re-insured in the UK, Sokolov said.
The Russian Defense Ministry has joined the recovery operation following the crash of the Boeing-737-800, it said in a statement. A military airfield, Rostov-Central, is ready to open its runway for Emergency Ministry aircraft, deploy engineering hardware and transport vehicles to help to clear the crash site, and take away debris. Military psychologists are working alongside other specialists at Rostov-on-Don Airport.
According Investigative Committee experts who examined the flight recorders, the black boxes are in a "normal condition," informed spokesman for the southern bureau of Russia’s Investigative Committee Oksana Kovrizhnaya. The data would be extracted as soon as possible, Kovrizhnaya said.
Ghaith Al-Ghaith, CEO of FlyDubai, has excluded the possibility of a terror act on ill-fated flight FZ981. No distress signal had been issued by the pilots either, he said.
Al-Ghaith insists the captain, Aristos Socratous, was a highly experienced pilot with over 5,700 flight hours and that the plane was new. Manufactured in 2011, the aircraft passed its latest maintenance on January 21, 2016.
Both FZ981 flight data recorders have been recovered from the crash site. Experts are evaluating whether any data can be retrieved from them, said Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the Russia’s Investigative Committee (IC). The cockpit voice recorder was found in the morning and the parametric recorder was recovered later in the day.
Emergency Ministry hotline phones for Rostov-on-Don Boeing 737 crash: 8-863-23-99999 and 8-800-775-17-17
Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the Investigative Committee (IC), said experts and experienced investigators are at the crash site, collecting evidence.
“Site inspection is actively underway. IC investigators are collecting the remains of the passengers for subsequent forensic, genetic examination,” Markin said in a statement published on the Russian Investigative Committee’s official website.
Spokesman for the southern bureau of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Oksana Kovrizhnaya, has put forward two versions of the crash: “Pilot error in deteriorating weather conditions or a technical failure,” she said.
A flight data recorder has been recovered, RIA Novosti reports.
The FlyDubai company has issued an official statement about flight FZ981.
“FlyDubai is deeply sorry to confirm the following information in relation to the tragic accident involving flight FZ981 which was flying from Dubai International (DXB) to Rostov on Don (ROV).”
The company confirmed that there were 62 people on board.
“Preliminary numbers indicate 55 passengers and seven crew on the Next-Generation Boeing 737-800 aircraft.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed has expressed condolences to the relatives and loved ones of the crashed Boeing.
“The Russian president feels deeply for all those who lost their loved ones in the Boeing 737 crash in Rostov-on-Don,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced on Saturday, stressing that the president has made it a priority to provide all possible assistance to the relatives of the victims.
A record of what appears to be conversation of the pilot of the crashed Boeing-737-800 with the control tower in Rostov-on-Don has been published on the web.
LifeNews reports citizens of Cyprus (captain), Colombia, Kirgizia, Russia, Spain and the Seychelles were among the crew members.
For the FlyDubai air company, which started operations in 2009, the crash in Rostov-on-Don was the first fatal incident in the company’s history.
TASS has corrected their earlier claim that all crew members were UAE nationals. According to additional sources, the crew might have included one Russian and two Spaniards.
A source in the Emergencies Ministry told TASS that all crew members of the FZ981 flight were nationals of the United Arab Emirates.
The fatal flight has been the aircraft’s third trip within the last 24 hours, Flight radar notes. The plane managed to make two flights from Dubai to Kiev and back, before heading for Rostov-on-Don.
A criminal case has been opened into the crash that will examine a possible “violation of traffic safety rules,” Prosecutor General’s office has announced.
Eleven foreigners were on board the flight, including all the crew members, Emergencies Ministry says.
Two of the flights that were scheduled to land in Rostov-on-Don airport before the Flydubai crash were diverted because of weather conditions, Flightradar24.com suggests. Another flight was diverted back to its origin airport in Istanbul.
An Aeroflot SU1166 flight from Moscow that was scheduled to land at 02:15 and Czech Airlines OK914 flight from Prague that was due at 03:25 were diverted to Krasnodar. Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul that was supposed to touch down at 03:55 was forced to return back to Turkey.
The wind velocity at the time of the crash was 22 meters per second, TASS reports.
Regional government will provide help to victims’ families, governor Vasily Golubev told reporters adding that already 17 medics are providing them with psychological support.
TASS correspondent reporting from the Russian consulate in Dubai says that according to preliminary data, three Ukrainians, one Tajikistan national and one Indian national could have been on board the plane. RIA's sources meanwhile also report that at least five foreigners were inboard the Boeing.
FlyDubai has regretfully confirmed the crash that resulted in many fatalities, saying that the airline is “doing all we can to gather information as quickly as possible.”
“At this moment our thoughts and prayers are with our passengers and our crew who were on board the aircraft. We will do everything we can to help those who have been affected by this accident,” the company wrote on Facebook.
Rostov on Don airport is to remain closed until at least Sunday morning, the governor announced.
The regional governor has declared Sunday a day of grief.
The spokesperson for the UN Secretary General told Russian news outlets that Ban Ki-moon's “thoughts” are with the families of the victims, and that he “hopes” that some passengers have survived.
The US-based Boeing corporation tweeted that they are aware of the tragedy and are gathering details.
“The plane completely disintegrated at the very beginning of the runway,” the local Emergencies Ministry chief, Igor Oder, said during a conference call held by the head of the Ministry, TASS reports.
According to a law enforcement source who spoke to LifeNews, a few moments before the crash the pilot of the aircraft reported that they were going to go for a second landing. These were his last words.
A government commission into the accident, headed by the Emergencies Ministry chief, is set to convene at 7:00 Moscow time.
According to the local Emergencies Ministry, more than 500 people are working the crash scene in addition to more than 60 pieces machinery. The ministry sent more than 400 rescue staff along with 34 pieces of equipment to help deal with the tragedy.
“The Boeing 737-800 is a mainstay veteran airplane,” John Cox, former pilot and chief executive officer, told RT. “It has been in service since the late 1960’s and enjoys an extremely good record. It is the most widely-used commercial jet in the world. It land frequently in difficult weather conditions,” he said, adding that Flydubai, despite being a young company, had a good record.
Cox, who himself flew Boeing 737 for about 15 years, was reluctant to second-guess the pilots’ acts leading up to the crash, saying that it was too early to speculate on whether “diversion would have been appropriate” even given tough weather conditions.
The Emergencies Ministry has confirmed that “regrettably everyone died” during the crash. The Ministry said that more 700 rescuers are now working the scene in addition to more than 90 pieces of machinery.
The flights from Rostov on Don are being diverted to Miniralny Vody Airport and Krasnodar air hubs.
The head of the Ministry, Vladimir Puchkov, gave clear orders to focus on the recovery of the black boxes of the plane and bodies from the wreckage.
According to planefinder.net FlyDubai Boeing 737 with registration number A6-FDN was only five years old. It was rolled out in late 2010 and delivered to the company in January 2011.
According to Flightradar24.com, the plane waited for two hours and nine minutes before attempting the second landing.
A TASS correspondent reporting from Rostov-on-Don says the airport is to remain closed at least until 9:00 am Moscow time. As a result at least six flights have been delayed, two of which were supposed to depart to St. Petersburg, while the others were Moscow-bound. Arriving flights are getting rerouted to Krasnodar.
Flydubai confirmed that they are aware of an “incident involving our flight FZ981 from Dubai to Rostov On Don.”
“We are investigating further details and will publish an update once more information is available,” the airline added.
Air-traffic control and local emergency services confirmed that the Boeing 737-800 jet crashed near the runway during a second approach in conditions of poor visibility.
“According to preliminary data, the Boeing 738 crashed in poor visibility conditions, some 50-100 meters left of the runway,”the source said.
The Russian Investigative Committee has launched an investigation into the cause of the crash.
The Emergencies Ministry issued a prior warning because of extreme weather conditions in the region expected between March 19- 21.
The Emergencies Ministry has opened up a hotline.
All crew and passengers on board the plane were killed in the crash, according to the regional Emergencies Ministry. According to preliminary reports there were 62 people on board, including seven crew members.
“During the landing approach a Boeing-737 crashed. It had 55 passengers on board. All of them died,” a regional spokesman told TASS.
CCTV camera footage posted on YouTube claims to have captured the moment of the explosion as the aircraft impacted the ground. However, its authenticity could not be immediately verified.