An-23 plane had a landing in Russia, then disappeared from the radar and then found wreckage on a slope in the Amur area. They went to almost 50 people on board. It is a plane “designed to operate on unpaid clues – and this type of device was made at the Antonov factory near Kiev, now just in China. “I doubt we will know exactly what happened”
“An extremely resistant plane, very solid, but now very, very old -fashioned.” The device, an an -24 passenger plane, which had even been involved in an accident for six years in the eastern region of Amur, Russia, with 46 people on board – 40 passengers and six crew. “Unfortunately we have another aviation accident this year, there are already several,” says Commander José Correia Guedes, stressing that, once again, “there seems to be no survivors.”
“We are talking about a very old plane, this plane is 49 years old, will be 50 next year, since it was produced. It is a plane designed in the 1950s, began to fly in 1960 – this copy was produced in 1976.” According to José Correia Guedes, these “are extremely solid aircraft, they were designed to operate on unprepared clues, dirt tracks, in the interior of Russia and Africa, which is a very difficult type of operation.” “It is a plane that cries and landed at very short distances, an airplane Stol [Short Take-off and Landing]as is said in aeronautics. “
It is not a “very economical device, which is why it was not sold much in the West, but it has been sold a lot in Russia” and in the countries near Russia. These planes were made at the Antonov factory near Kiev, Ukraine. But now they are manufactured only in China, under license. “About 1,100 copies have been manufactured, many of them are still out there,” says José Correia Guedes.
“I doubt we will know exactly what happened”
“This plane [ANn-24]In particular, he was involved in an accident in 2018 almost seven years ago, when, after landing, he hit a wing at a lighting station and seriously damaged the wing. These things are never good for planes, so this then requires an inspection. Obviously I am not suggesting that there is a relationship between one thing and the accident, but it is certainly something the researchers will look at, “he warns.” These planes have voice recorders and parameter recorders, the so -called black boxes. Therefore, I believe it will be possible to know what happened to the plane, “explains the commander.
“Given it is a very old plane, and given the war that exists right now in Ukraine, there has been great difficulty finding spare pieces for these planes, so it would not surprise me that there was a maintenance problem here,” says commander José Correia Guedes.
“According to witnesses, the accident occurred in low visibility conditions, so we are talking about a remote area of Russia, already near the China border. And we know that the plane did not report the navigation position – it should have done, should have communicated to the control tower. Then they appeared wreckage in a hill near the airport. José Correia Guedes stresses that this is “a very mountainous zone”, near the city of Tunda, in the region of Amur. Authorities say that even mobilization of the means to the accident zone is being very difficult, because it is a very difficult zone, says the TAS news agency.
According to the first statements of the Russian authorities, it is clear that the investigation will follow two main lines: the device failure or eventually a human error. Commander José Correia Guedes confirms that this is the usual procedure: “The pilot is the weakest link in all this. But obviously circumstances allow us to think of this possibility. Poor visibility, mountainous ground, a difficult area to operate. And then technical problems.”
Anyway, the commander has doubts that we ever know what really happened. “Russia has never been a country very open to sharing with the rest of the world what happens. I doubt we know exactly what happened to this accident. The Russian authorities were what they well understood, but I am afraid they have no interest in sharing whatever it happened.”
