Sukhoi Superjet 100 now has a significant design flaw and Russia is not fixing it...
Posted by Throwawayiea@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 144 comments
Sukhoi Superjet 100 that crashed in 2019 was the first time this issue was addressed by the pilot and not Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, a division of the United Aircraft that builds the aircraft. The landing gear is below the fuel tanks meaning that if the landing is a HARD landing, the landing gear has a tendancy to puncture the fuel tanks thus sparking a fire. This has not been fixed or address. Source:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf-pgOi1Unc
No-Assistance6865@reddit
Nice , I have hundreds of flights on the superjet before the accident in 2019. After that I really tried to avoid it. Now it will never be again...
m71nu@reddit
This is literary the Ford Pinto design flaw which is documented in almost any management book.
Cool-Acanthaceae8968@reddit
Yeah… and the Ford Pinto strategy was to keep it the same and pay out individual settlements because it would be cheaper.
Boeing made the same decision with MCAS.
Both were only forced to change it with federal intervention.
honore_ballsac@reddit
You mean the "free" market did not regulate itself as we are taught every second of our lives?
Commentor9001@reddit
Sure it regulated itself, but turns out people's lives are cheaper than safe airplanes.
JimSyd71@reddit
I've read somewhere that airlines prefer die in crashes rather than being paralyzed because compensating dead people's families is cheaper than compensating somebody who is paralyzed for life.
masteroffdesaster@reddit
is a market reliant on government contracts or subsidies really free?
honore_ballsac@reddit
Is any market "free"? Can a market be "free" (unless I am having a libertarian wet dream)?
Cool-Acanthaceae8968@reddit
Yeah it can.
Without mechanisms of regulation, standards, oversight, anti-trust, and wealth redistribution through progressive taxes and estate taxes… it would very quickly devolve to feudalism.
Forget a government making laws… you literally won’t be able to go anywhere or do anything without paying for it or being told not to by private corporations.
honore_ballsac@reddit
But that is not what is meant by "free" marketers. Free market is supposed to be the cure for everything. Like if you work hard and be a go-getter, you can also be a billionaire from a bagger or cart pusher.
Yaaallsuck@reddit
That is what a free market means though, whether the idiots parroting it understand that or not is irrelevant.
ooaegisoo@reddit
How old where you when you realised free market wasn't real?
honore_ballsac@reddit
Econ 101 years old.
Coomb@reddit
The only free market is the market of the wild, where you just get what you get and you hope that the person selling you your food or whatever isn't someone actively trying to kill you so they can steal your clothing or whatever.
Which, to be fair, probably wouldn't be that much worse for poor people, because the people who benefit most from having the government pay for their security and revenge apparatus (cops) are the people who have a lot to lose. Without the threat of cops, who of course provide services at no direct cost to the beneficiary, we would see a hell of a lot more robberies of banks and jewelry stores and so on, much like we did in the Wild West. Because it turns out that it's tough to establish or hire effective private security on a large scale, especially if they aren't shielded from legal liability like government employees are.
This isn't at all to say that we shouldn't have a government and that we shouldn't have law enforcement. But it is worth remembering that the genesis and continuation of our current system for punishing people for breaking laws functions mostly to the benefit of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. Someone gets shot in the street, and if they happen to be the CEO of the healthcare subsidiary of a massive insurance and services provider, you get a nationwide press coverage and a manhunt with a substantial reward. But if the victim is someone who is a drug user, or someone who seems to be one; a person who's a convicted criminal; or even someone who's simply poor, you don't see a nationwide manhunt.
SirMcWaffel@reddit
Well, turns out the settlements weren’t expensive enough… who set the price for human lives that low?
Cool-Acanthaceae8968@reddit
The free market.
Mission-Shopping7170@reddit
not so expensive market
AshleyUncia@reddit
"Russia is terribly sorry for your family's loss, as settlement, we promise to never send you to Ukraine. Also here are some free airline tickets ...To Ukraine."
PointeMichel@reddit
I find the fact they tried to gaslight the pilot community into thinking MCAS was pilot area insane.
So disgusting that they’d try to pin it on dead colleagues like that.
discombobulated38x@reddit
Ehhhh they were just foreigners - literally the opinion of Boeing seniors at the time.
Spark_Ignition_6@reddit
Nothing to do with them being foreigners and everything with them being poorly trained. And a poorly designed automated system relying on a single-point of failure.
-a pilot who doesn't work for Boeing
PerfectPercentage69@reddit
About a year before the crash, Lion Air did raise the concern about letting their pilots fly MAX 8's without simulator training. They asked Boeing for an option to get their pilots trained in the simulator, but Boeing rushed to shut down this idea since the whole push by Boeing is to make the change without additional simulator training. Boeing employees actually mocked Lion Air for asking for the training.
Spark_Ignition_6@reddit
It's not MCAS-specific training that's the only issue, but also the ability to properly diagnose runaway trim (which is what the MCAS failure manifested as) and run the appropriate checklist, which they did not do. Has nothing to do with MCAS specifically and applies to almost any aircraft.
Techhead7890@reddit
Just to corroborate this, runaway trim affects GA craft too.
PerfectPercentage69@reddit
And yet, I've just pointed out that Boeing had a hand in pushing and convincing the airline that their pilots don't need extra training, whether it was MCAS specific or not. So your claim that the airline is responsible for it and not Boeing is wrong.
Spark_Ignition_6@reddit
I'm guessing you don't know what runaway trim is.
747ER@reddit
Did you read the comment you replied to? The checklist that the pilots of JT610 screwed up was not “extra training”; it’s part of the standard training that all pilots of all aircraft types receive. Requesting “extra training” from Boeing wouldn’t have done anything in that situation since they failed at one of the most basic, common, and important checklists in any aircraft.
discombobulated38x@reddit
Oh they both were yes, but Boeing seniors were also horrifically racist.
Spark_Ignition_6@reddit
In what way were they racist?
discombobulated38x@reddit
Let's see:
The assumption that Indonesian pilots were poorly trained because they were Indonesian, so that's why it crashed.
The assumption that Lion Air were idiots prior to the accident for requesting additional training from a Boeing test pilot.
The fact that despite the VP for engineering knowing MCAS was likely at fault within hours of the first crash, and initiating a re-write of the software when the FDR data was obtained, but Muilenberg (who's emails on the subject are remarkably missing BTW) went on a talk show and blamed the pilots for not following "part of the training manual (when it really wasn't)".
The fact that more old white test pilots made jokes about how Asian crews couldn't spell 737, and one training pilot asked if Chung Fo Ho could even follow cockpit procedures.
Multiple people interviewed about the debacle pointed towards Boeing's institutional racism being a factor in their initial response.
Spark_Ignition_6@reddit
That wasn't an assumption. That was a fact.
I don't know the Boeing test pilots or what they think so you'll have to link a statement from them to illuminate this for me.
Runaway trim was a part of their checklist and they failed to follow the checklist properly. If they had followed the checklists, they would not have crashed. That is factual.
See above. It is factual that the pilots reacted incorrectly and were poorly trained. It's not a "racist assumption" when it's true and based on the actual facts that happened.
Speculation. White American pilots are also routinely blamed for crashes... when they're at fault.
The second aircraft was warned about MCAS and trained on it following the first crash. They still failed to follow the correct checklist procedure.
Sensitive_Paper2471@reddit
they were poorly trained by boeing on purpose. No mention of MCAS (in sufficient detail) in retraining sessions.
Spark_Ignition_6@reddit
It's not MCAS-specific training that's the only issue, but also the ability to properly diagnose runaway trim (which is what the MCAS failure manifested as) and run the appropriate checklist, which they did not do. Has nothing to do with MCAS specifically and applies to almost any aircraft.
Sensitive_Paper2471@reddit
What now, you're expecting every pilot to be Chuck Yeager or Sully?
I doubt you would be saying these Boeing company lines straight out of their handbook if a UAL max 8 had been the first to crash because of MCAS.
Boeing refused additional training. Proven multiple times in various documents presented in public hearings.
Spark_Ignition_6@reddit
No, dude, lol. Runaway trim is a pretty classic emergency procedure that almost every professional pilot gets trained on early in their career.
Whether Boeing also thinks that proper handling of what was a classic runaway trim incident would have prevented the crash or not is irrelevant. It's what I, and most other professional pilots, think. That doesn't absolve Boeing of the blame for designing a shitty system that created a runaway trim emergency in the first place.
pjakma@reddit
How do you diagnose runaway trim due to a malfunctioning system the manufacturer deliberately withheld from the training material?
747ER@reddit
Because it presents the same symptoms and is resolved using largely the same checklist. If you don’t believe me, you could ask the 16 pilots of the exact same LionAir plane that week who all experienced the exact same MCAS failure and landed safely. JT610’s crew was the outlier; they were the only one that did not perform the correct checklist as all the others did.
Sensitive_Paper2471@reddit
I've seen multiple people here still trying to push this story.
_ferko@reddit
The opinion of many Americans as well.
Cool-Acanthaceae8968@reddit
Yeah.. Americans who put the autopilot on at 400 feet and take it off at 100 so MCAS is never a factor.
wHy WaS eThIoPiAn At FuLl PoWeR?/?/?/????
Fixation on a primary flight control and an out of trim forces he couldn’t figure out.
WhY dIdNt ThEy CuT oUt StAb TrIm LiKe In A rUnAwAy???/?/?/??
Because it wasn’t a runaway. It still responded to all pitch trim inputs and didn’t go anywhere near as fast as a vanilla runaway.
And the Ethiopian pilots did that… exactly as Boeing told them to after they revealed the existence of MCAS… and because of the out of trim forces and the smaller trim wheels on the MAX—_they physically couldn’t retrim it!-
Silver996C2@reddit
The original cheap ass strategy was GM with the Corvair. They had a rear swing axle suspension design similar to the VW bug except there was a missing support arm that connected the bottom of each wheel hub with an attachment to the differential. This stopped the rear wheels tucking under the car during cornering and flipping the car. The part was called a ‘camber compensator’, (RPO 696) which also included stiffer shocks and springs - all for $10.80 in 1961. Ralph Nader found memos from GM engineers telling their managers that this upgrade was needed for safety. GM accountants wrote memos claiming the few lawsuits they figured they would receive would cost less than the total upgrade on 337,371 Corsair’s produced in 1961. $3.64M parts cost out of $817M Corvair sales revenue that year. A tombstone decision driven by heartless accountants on the 14th floor at HQ. GM tried increasing rear tire inflation as a ‘fix’ and that had little effect.
The Pinto also had a cousin to the gas tank rupturing fire issue. It was the redesigned 1979 Mustang, (similar rear end design). Every Mustang had a sheet of 4mm plastic inserted between the differential and the fuel tank, (they used the tank straps to keep it in place) that was forward of the diff so that in a rear end impact the plastic sheet between the differential and gas tank would in theory prevent sparks when the tank was ruptured by the differential in a rear end crash. This was a cheap fix as a result of the Pinto fires that didn’t have this $3 sheet of plastic.
Then Ford went on to have early F/150 fires from side impacts rupturing the saddle tanks. Another stupid design. 🤦
airfryerfuntime@reddit
Then release a bullshit study like 10 years later claiming the car wasn't any more dangerous than other cars of the time.
Eeebs-HI@reddit
I immediately switched to a Gremlin.
FelisCantabrigiensis@reddit
This was the concern that EASA (and FAA) had with the A321XLR and led to redesign of the fuselage around the wing/body join and the fairings over that area to ensure safety.
keyboard_pilot@reddit
I dunno, there's a big difference in risk matrix between landing gear up and ripping the fuel tank (321xlr's certification concern) and landing hard leading to ripping up the fuel tank.
Both conditions are catastrophic, but one occurs more often than the other. Crashworthiness vs. ....hard-landing-worthiness I guess XD
FelisCantabrigiensis@reddit
Crashes are still required (by the FAA) not to cause the gear to rupture fuel tanks, even if the gear separates. I.e. you cannot have the gear driven up through the wing or body into a fuel tank in a way that would rupture it.
You can't have a wet wing with gear below it, for example (if you choose to attach gear to wing). The part of the wing over the gear, through which the gear goes if the landing forces exceed the strength of the gear attachement point, must be dry.
(e.g. section 5.5 of https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_25-30.pdf )
keyboard_pilot@reddit
Yes we are in agreement. I mean the sukhoi is more worrisome if true that the current problem being identified is structural integrity of the fuel tank in the event of (merely) a hard landing over a crashlanding for the 321
FelisCantabrigiensis@reddit
Yes, very much agreed - just a hard landing shouldn't cause a conflagration!
Throwawayiea@reddit (OP)
Sukhoi's parent company can't afford to make changes.
FelisCantabrigiensis@reddit
Airbus redesigned the A321XLR before it entered service, so they didn't have a problem with existing aircraft. Also, they have much more money to do things.
Throwawayiea@reddit (OP)
Dude, these are peoples LIVES your talking about. This is a serious issue that must be fixed. Both Airbus and Boeing ground their planes when flaws are found.
sofixa11@reddit
Boeing definitely didn't ground anything when the MCAS was discovered, they pinned it all on pilots (who had explicitly asked for more training, but Boeing just mocked them).
They also have a waiver on the fact that if you live the engine anti-ice system on for too long, it melts the cowling which can be ingested by the engine.
Boeing is not a good example, and hasn't been for years. Neither were McDonnell Douglas before them
Ok_Chard2094@reddit
After the merger, the company kept the Boeing name and the McDonnell Douglas engineering philosophy.
flume@reddit
Why are you responding as if that person was joking around or making light of this issue? Super weird response from you.
ErmakDimon@reddit
Boeing has literally been proven to put profits before safety over the last few years. Your rhetoric of "rUsSiA bAd" really doesn't fit here at all. The Superjet certainly has its flaws, but nobody could expect a qualified pilot to repeatedly smash a mechanically sound aircraft into the ground multiple times, increasing the severity of the impact up to more than 5G, every time. In 2019 the captain made a series of poor decisions that resulted in the accident. Rushed approach, not getting used to how the airplane flies in direct mode, and an unnecessary overweight landing all contributed to what happened. The Antalya incident, on the other hand, is more interesting to me. I'm curious as to how many Gs that landing incurred.
FavoriteFoodCarrots@reddit
Does the Russian government care about people’s lives? That’s the relevant authority here.
Cool-Acanthaceae8968@reddit
Who’s government let a profits before people corporation do their own certification?
Throwawayiea@reddit (OP)
Answer:No
SirPiffingsthwaite@reddit
...can't afford not to.
Vlad2or@reddit
By parent company do you mean MOTHER RUSSIA?
Appropriate-Count-64@reddit
Interesting. I’m interested to see how they changed the design.
FelisCantabrigiensis@reddit
FAA requirements proposal is here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/05/07/2024-09660/special-conditions-airbus-model-a321neo-extra-long-range-xlr-airplane-cabin-evacuation-protection
There are many other articles in industry news sources about it.
Appropriate-Count-64@reddit
Ah ok. My guess (this is just conjecture) is that they made the fuselage/fairing thicker at the RCT and then redesigned the rest of the structure to reduce its weight without losing too much structural strength. Though it may have been more involved than that.
FelisCantabrigiensis@reddit
The requirement is that an external pooled fuel fire, or other hot things (such as broken engine parts), is not able to ignite the fuel in that rear centre fuel tank any more easily than in other fuel tanks. If you find some videos of SSJ100 crashes online, they often involve a heavy impact on the aircraft belly followed by immediate large fire and flame. The FAA seems to be requiring that this not happen - that sparks or heat from such an impact not ignite the fuel tank. They're also requiring that the fuel tank not catch fire quickly if another fuel leak onto the ground under the aircraft catches fire. This is an important part of certification, because there are several past accidents where people died after fire from fuel on the ground around the aircraft penetrated the cabin before people could escape.
I can imagine this being satisfied by a double wall structure, or some sort of insulation layer, or a much thicker wall, or similar - but I am not an Airbus design engineer so I'm not sure how they're going to solve it.
RoninTheAccuser@reddit
Why not just remove a small part of the fule tank that gets punctured
SHouston77@reddit
Interesting. Thanks for the comment.
Raguleader@reddit
Bad news for Boeing /s
Kruse@reddit
I'd say typical Russian cost-cutting over safety, but then I remember Boeing.
AviationNerd_737@reddit
Nicely ignoring the fact that the B737NG has an extremely good statistical safety rate, along with the B777, B787.
ThrowAwaAlpaca@reddit
And yet ppl don't trust companies who gamble with ppls lives for profits.
AviationNerd_737@reddit
"Gamble with lives for profit" are you telling me that the Soviet Union (which had 'no incentive' for profit) had better safety records than their Western counterparts?
MCAS implementation was a poor judgement call... but beyond that, there's zero conclusive evidence that the 737 (or any other Boeing aircraft) is an unsafe deathtrap due to Capitalist greed.
ThrowAwaAlpaca@reddit
Next you're going to tell me that doors flying off airplanes aren't a safety issue?
PerfectPercentage69@reddit
Those were because of missing bolts that were not installed during maintenance, not because there was anything wrong with the plane design.
ThrowAwaAlpaca@reddit
Wether or not it's in the design or the build quality is pretty irrelevant to the 350 dead ppl don't you think?
Raguleader@reddit
You'd probably blame Boeing for the loss of KAL 007. After all, it'd make no difference to the passengers, right?
747ER@reddit
You claimed that the design was unsafe, which is it not. Spirit Aerosystems assembled that particular aircraft incorrectly, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the design of the plane.
PerfectPercentage69@reddit
It's not relevant to the dead people, but it is relevant to this conversation, which is about the design of the airplanes.
ThrowAwaAlpaca@reddit
Not really, it was that Boeing is shit at making airplanes these days.
ThrowAwaAlpaca@reddit
Initial build was wrong so they had to redo the door, is maintenance now? Not it's not.
AviationNerd_737@reddit
Of course it is. Doesn't mean the 737Max is an unsafe design or an unsafe aircraft as a whole. FYI Airbus FBW also has had uncommanded pitch down incidents.
Swiper-73@reddit
Hmmm, I wonder wonder wonder how come they chose to grandfather the design, thus bypassing about 20 years of otherwise compulsory safety design updates.... Surely not to save money... Ok, Airbus does it as well, but no to quite such an extent
AviationNerd_737@reddit
Grandfathering working designs is not an unsafe thing in ANY way. Airbus FBW is almost 40yrs old and kept very consistent over the years. Grandfathering is a cost effective solution.
The 737 Max (or the NG, or the Classics) have no dramatic design flaws whatsoever.
Itchy-Ambition-1171@reddit
I mean, it's a Russian plane what did you expect?
Cool-Acanthaceae8968@reddit
So… just like an American airplane with doors that fall off and a desire to fly itself into the ground?
It’s interesting the difference in perspective.
Like how the USA killed 17 astronauts due to known design flaws and nearly killed 12 more (STS-51B, STS-27).
But the “backwards” Russians have only killed four in with far more time in space (first to space, permanent inhabitation of space, no years long interruptions to space programs).
Raguleader@reddit
And the first Soviet astronaut died in a plane crash in bad weather due to the incompetence of the Soviet air force. Not sure if Gagarin was one of the four you mentioned or not.
Bergasms@reddit
The backwards russians also literally copied the space shuttle with buran before the country fell in a steaming pile putting an end to the program, so the only reason they weren't killing cosmonauts with a shuttle was because the country shat itself and they couldn't continue with it.
And, y'know, the fucking Nedelin Catastrophe you absolute nitwit.
Un0rigi0na1@reddit
Four that we know of...
omega552003@reddit
Bro, Soviet and Russian aviation is much more dangerous than you think.
kussian@reddit
Jesus more Russia haters 🤦♂️
friedrice33@reddit
Didn’t they have an issue where the tail would fall off in flight too? I believe interjet a Mexican company that is no longer in business bought a bunch of these, and they were all grounded for safety concerns.
ErmakDimon@reddit
I think you got that confused. Interjet flew them for a good while, the issue they had with it was poor after-delivery support and logistics which made their dispatch reliability very low. They would ground planes because they had to wait for the necessary spare parts to arrive, which could take sometimes months.
Manaea@reddit
I mean, its not like they can afford to fix it right now
HortenWho229@reddit
Could they make it SOP that that particular fuel tank must be empty before landing?
How empty do plane fuel tanks get? Can the fuel pump suck everything out
GodsWorth01@reddit
Tu-104 flashbacks
Cool-Acanthaceae8968@reddit
How? The TU-104 had stability problems much like the 707 did.. and it was fixed after a few fatal crashes—also like the 707.
BreadstickBear@reddit
I wanted to say that!
Fresh-Wealth-8397@reddit
It's not like they would do them if they could afford them either lol
helios_xii@reddit
"Now"
kussian@reddit
Wow OP hates Russia. Kek😊
Rooilia@reddit
Are their PD-14 still inoperable too? I had read about a handful were produced this year, but nothing about flying them.
EuroFederalist@reddit
PD-14 is apparently still on development hell (only prototypes manufactured?) even thought mass production was supposed to begin by 2023. Maybe someone who knows more about Russian aviation lets us know whats going on.
Rooilia@reddit
Yeah, up and downs like a rollercoaster. And I guess tankies hate my comment. Or what do I overlook, I mean, only you answered...
EuroFederalist@reddit
In general terms PD-14, if it ever become reality, isn't all that impressive when compared with modern engines. PD-8 seems to be engine Russian will actually manufacture but it's even less sophisticated being more similar with older western engines from 1990s like the PW6000 (but with less thrust).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_%26_Whitney_PW6000
dvornik16@reddit
MC21 prototypes are flying with it for the type certification. PD14 got certified for the use inside Russia. There is no mass produced plane for it yet. The scaled down version of it, PD8 is in development to replace SaM engines in the next generation of Superjet.
Rooilia@reddit
Thanks.
Zvenigora@reddit
Is there an airworthiness directive about this?
Throwawayiea@reddit (OP)
The planes aren't approved to fly outside of Russia
dvornik16@reddit
It's a lie. The certificate has been suspended for the US, EU, and probably several other places for political reasons. SSJs fly outside Russian airspace in may countries.
Throwawayiea@reddit (OP)
Dude, What are you talking about. The 2019 trial of the Russian pilot, his claim was made public and he was jailed for 6 years YET Rosaviatsiya (FATA) issued a warning of "NO HARD LANDINGS" after the trail. Poor pilot took the blame for Russian aviation failure and you're calling it a lie? What part of this "lie propaganda" are you going to push that different from the FACT THE POSTED?
dvornik16@reddit
Airworthiness certificates for SSJ were suspended due to sanctions, not technical issues. Please bother to read, for example, this and go peddle your political views somewhere else.
cbohn99@reddit
As far ss I know, Iraero flies their SU9 outside of Russia. Manila was served earlier this year around February to May for Russian tourists. They also fly/flew to Vietnam with the SuU9
Throwawayiea@reddit (OP)
So, saying RUSSIAN airlines are flying this death trap and therefore they're OK. Gotcha!
cbohn99@reddit
Yup, just checked, there's still a weekly Irkutsk - Hano with IrAero Sukhoi SuperJet 100
Old_Aviator@reddit
Actually they flew in Mexico, with occasional trips to the US, with Interjet Airlines.
https://simpleflying.com/what-will-happen-with-interjets-sukhoi-fleet/
3rdm4n@reddit
The directive is to send it
AviationNerd_737@reddit
Umm... it's Russia
Accomplished_Clue733@reddit
That was a pretty major impact though. If an MD-11 hit the landing gear as hard as that Sukhoi did, it would punch the gear through the wing spar, snap the wing off and flip on its back. As demonstrated multiple times
Appropriate-Count-64@reddit
Yeah but FedEx Flight 80 was specifically a special case because the shear pins that were meant to avert that kind of failure didn’t work due to the high horizontal acceleration instead of straight vertical.
This accident had those safety systems activate and it STILL had a fire from the wing, despite the wing remaining attached to the aircraft and the safety systems working properly. For comparison, other landing gear collapses have gone clear through wings before with no fire. There have even been instances of landing gear going through cabin floors with the only repercussion being heavily structural damage.
Aeroflot 1492 would’ve been normally a very heavily damaged aircraft, but this flaw meant that pilot error killed 41 people.
Throwawayiea@reddit (OP)
I hate whataboutisms. No, the pilot clearly stated that there is a flaw and it's now happened twice. Did you watch the video?
Accomplished_Clue733@reddit
I did watch it, turns out if you crash a plane into the runway there's a good chance something will catch fire. I'm not saying the Sukhoi is good (it isn't), but this isn't quite the headline made out here.
Weird_Point_4262@reddit
Yeah I can only find one case of this happening. Some obscure news channel isn't really a convincing argument that this is as big of an issue as made out.
Physics_Unicorn@reddit
I mean... if you're landing hard enough to displace your landing gear through the fuselage, yes a fire is going to make that worse, but it's not a good place to be in any airframe.
Likesdirt@reddit
It's also a "back to the drawing board start over" kind of problem, unless they add drop tanks or something. Fuel tanks have to be big!
Appropriate-Count-64@reddit
Eh I think they could probably figure it out with a lot time. It would likely require shifting the fuel tanks further outboard and reinforcing the landing gear pivot connections to make it harder to punch through the wing into that area.
482Cargo@reddit
But the ensuing fire makes an otherwise manageable evacuation deadly.
Signal_Quarter_74@reddit
This is so spectacularly stupid it’s almost funny. But it’s a tragedy because dozens have died because they decided to make a flying Pinto
Throwawayiea@reddit (OP)
Agreed.
dontsheeple@reddit
It's the Lada of airplanes.
Throwawayiea@reddit (OP)
hahaha
Boris_the_pipe@reddit
Landing gear of most modern jets is located in the same place of the wing...
Throwawayiea@reddit (OP)
and the fuel tanks?
482Cargo@reddit
But not the fuel tank.
madman320@reddit
So basically Sukhoi has made an aircraft version of the Ford Pinto: placing the fuel tank in one of the most vulnerable parts of the aircraft in the event of an accident.
I don't think Sukhoi can afford to redesign the aircraft while Russia is hit by sanctions and the government is demanding hundreds of aircraft to replace Western aircraft.
Throwawayiea@reddit (OP)
Agreed.
WolfVidya@reddit
Russian Flying Bureau about to emit an airworthiness directive that reads:
"When operating SuperJet100, do not land hard".
Throwawayiea@reddit (OP)
...or you'll find our flaw which we cannot fix??? hard landings happen...they are sometimes uncontrollable.
vyrago@reddit
Nyet, Airplane is fine.
can_i_has_beer@reddit
what is problem?
Itchy-Ambition-1171@reddit
The engineer fell from the office window
PerfectPercentage69@reddit
Then we're good to go comrade, as long as the front doesn't fall off.
RedditVirumCurialem@reddit
Project manager volunteered for SMO.
CoffeeFox@reddit
Oddly I wonder if this design flaw makes it preferable to do a belly landing in an emergency where a hard landing is likely.
CrappyTan69@reddit
RyanAir remove this from their fleet diversification plans.
agha0013@reddit
so that explains the rather dramatic fires these things seem to get into with rough landings, brilliant design boys!
and that's on top of the main project flaw of these planes being almost impossible to support and keep flying because there was virtually no after sale support for anything. Just a dead end project.