MOSCOW, July 22. /TASS/. The Sukhoi Superjet plan that crashed in the Moscow Region exceeded the designated airspeed and went into a dive, the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) press office told TASS.
"The plane entered a descent with increasing pitch angle and then into a dive at the sixth minute of the flight, at the airspeed of 320 knots (the Overspeed sound alarm was audible)," the IAC said.
The crew attempted to take the plane out of the dive using the control stick, but they were unable to do that.
The crew engaged the automatic thrust before taking off, and engaged the auto-pilot at 550 feet. Five minutes after the takeoff, at the altitude of 5,160 feet, the plan started to descend at the 4 degree angle. At this moment, the airspeed was at 200 knots and kept rising. At this moment, the plane closed the flaps and the slats entirely.
"During the descent, the auto-pilot and the automatic thrust were disengaged. The crew entered in manual control mode using the side control stick and engine thrust controls. The descent continued until the level of 4,500 feet, with a subsequent climb to 4,750 feet," the IAC said.
The plane crashed at 14:59:15 Moscow time. The last registered airspeed stood at 365 knots, its vertical descend speed stood at 17,000 feet per minute, its pitch angle stood at 25 degrees down, and its roll angle stood at 25 degrees to the right. The plane engines were working until the impact moment.
The Superjet, owned by Gazpromavia, took off from the Lukhovitsy repair facility to the Vnukovo airport, but crashed near Kolomna. There were three crew members onboard, all of them died. A criminal investigation was initiated over the crash.