Free Republic

In little over a week, Russia lost its second fighter jet, Su-30, to an uncanny crash when it was carrying out a massive aerial bombardment of Ukrainian cities and battling in the Kherson region. On October 23, an apartment building in Irkutsk, Siberia, was struck by a Russian Sukhoi Su-30SM Flanker multi-role fighter, killing both crew members and starting a massive fire on the ground. Su-30 is a two-seat, twin-engine, highly agile fighter aircraft produced by Sukhoi Aviation Corporation of Russia. The Su-30s are manufactured at the neighboring Irkutsk Aviation Plant, where the jet is reported to have just taken...

Too many computers and not enough “hands-on” flying mean most pilots would have fallen victim to the weather that brought down AirAsia 8501. As searchers close in on what appears to be the main wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501 the retrieval of the airplane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders should soon follow. The wreckage lies no more than around 100 feet down in the Java Sea. Although there are strong currents and poor visibility, compounded by the high seas generated by stormy weather, divers should be able to locate the rear end of the fuselage where the flight data...