[Avionics Magazine 12-28-2016] Russia’s Ministry of Defense has confirmed the recovery of the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) by the team investigating the recent crash of a Tupolev Tu-154 plane in the Black Sea near Sochi. The recorder has been delivered to the Air Force Central Research and Development Institute in Lyubertsy.
Tu-154 aircraft. Photo: Tupolev.
The Tu-154 was carrying 92 total passengers and flight crew members, en route to Syria from Moscow on Sunday, Dec. 25, 2016, for a military concert performance. The aircraft landed in Sochi to refuel, and crashed shortly after takeoff, the Defense Ministry’s press service reports. According to Russia’s Sputnik news agency, Viktor Ozerov, chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, a terrorist attack has been ruled out as the cause of the crash.
The recovered FDR will be decoded, once it has undergone a technical cleaning process, the Defense Ministry says.