[Idaho_Cowboy]

The request for, and granting, of an altitude clearance that would not clear the nearby mountains is puzzling.

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Not at all. We have seen this sort of thing before in Russian Aviation. Remember the reason the airliner with the Polish president crashed, the Poles say the pilot got bad orders, the Russians say the pilot didn't correctly follow orders.
The question is who was on the plane? The last report I saw on this said the passengers were foreign nationals and eight Russians. Foreign nationals from where?

[ltc8k6]

I don’t know who they were but, this pic says it all about this crash

http://avherald.com/img/sukhoi_su95_ra-97004_jakarta_120509_2.jpg