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March 21st, 2018 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Russian authorities have grounded all Antonov An-148 aircraft over safety concerns following the deadly crash of a passenger jet outside Moscow due to equipment failure.
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On February 11 all 71 passengers and crew aboard Saratov Airlines Flight 703 were killed when an Antonov An-148 regional jet crashed into the ground and exploded minutes after departing from Domodedovo Airport.
Cockpit recordings from the Cockpit Voice Recorder showed the captain ordering his co-pilot to gain altitude instead of tilting the plane down, while investigators attributed the crash to different speed readings on the displays due to frozen equipment.
“We ordered to suspend all An-148 flights in all airlines that operate them,” the state-run TASS news agency cited Viktor Basargin, the head of Russia’s transit safety watchdog Rostransnadzor, as saying.
Russia’s Aerospace Forces operate 12 of the Ukrainian-made regional jets, followed by six An-148s operated by Rossiya Airlines, five by Angara Airlines and four by the troubled Saratov Airlines, reported the TASS news agency.
Rostransnadzor order also grounded Saratov Airlines’ entire fleet in the wake of the crash, and Russia’s Federal Air Transportation Agency limited the airline’s operator’s certificate until April 27.
Investigators concluded that the Russian Antonov An-148 passenger jet that had crashed outside Moscow did not break up in mid-air, but rather than an explosion occurred when the plane hit the ground, said Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee after the initial investigation into the crash.
“It has been established that the aircraft was intact at the time of its descent and there was no combustion. The explosion occurred when the plane hit the ground,” said Petrenko.
On February 11, the Antonov An-148 passenger plane operated by Saratov Airlines (Moscow to Orsk route, in the Orenburg Region) on Flight 6W703 that departed from Domodedovo airport vanished from radars a few minutes after take-off. Fragments of the plane were found near the village of Stepanovskoye in the Moscow Region’s Ramensky district.
There were 65 passengers and six crew members onboard the passenger jet. There were no survivors. According to latest updates, rescue workers have found more than 300 plane’s fragments at the crash site.
With investigators being confident that the plane didn’t explode or break up in flight, it is still uncertain what actually did cause the fatal air disaster. Investigators are looking into several of the more likely scenarios. However, one of the most likely scenarios is an instrument failure that might also affect the security of other Antonov-148 jets.
CH/L – nsnbc 21.03.2018
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2018/03/21/88160/
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