One engine of the jet is completely burned, while another is practically intact.
Photo: Talgat Tairov
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Boeing Blew Out as Balloon
The so-called field examination at the site of Boeing 737’s crash that killed 88 passengers in Perm will complete today. The preliminary conclusion of investigators is that the plane of Aeroflot-Nord Airline didn’t fall apart in the air but first hit the ground and went on fire. One of the probable causes could be the fire in the right engine and the failure of devices measuring and leveling pressure outside and inside the jet.
The experts actually completed their field examination by past night. No traces of explosives were found. The explosion and the fuel inflammation resulted from the ground collision, said Alexander Neradko, who heads Federal Aero-Navigation Service (Rosaeronavigatsiya). Nevertheless, the experts of fire testing laboratory are yet to find out whether the jet was on fire before the crash, the official specified.
The doubts about the beginning of fire root in the evidences of witnesses insisting that the jet inflamed in the air and looked like a comet. Besides, unlike the left engine, the right one, No. 856332, that was made August 9, 1992 and operated for 41,965 hours (the jet was registered in the Bermuda Islands and operated 44,521 hours) is very much deformed and completely burned. The trend is that some 90 percent of the people that saw an air crash speak about the fire and air explosion, and this information is usually wrong.
The fire in the engine didn’t cause the crash, one of the investigators said on condition of anonymity. Boeing 737 was solid till it hit the ground at a 30-degree angle. The plane broke to small pieces after the collision and the immediate fire of fuel that splashed out the fuel tanks (over 5 tons of aviation kerosene). If the jet had broken in the air, it would have broken into big fragments, the investigator explained.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 16, 2008
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