To me it says something about the value of a busted plane, to Russian airlines in the face of sanctions. Maybe that's reading too much into it and Ural's leadership are just miserly.

Except it's a plane. And that just freaks me the hell out. That third dimension with flying is the scary one

I'm fine with that third axis.

It's the axis intercept that's most bothersome.

> It's the axis intercept that's most bothersome.

Real quote from my grandmother: "I'm not afraid of flying or anything. I just wish they didn't have to get so close to the ground before landing!"

[delayed]

Due to the fact that it's a plane, it comes with a truckload of books.

These books describe every possible failure and respective diagnostic and repair procedures. Multiple planes of this type have been broken on purpose in different modes to figure out what can be bent where and by how much before it becomes a problem. Planes roll out to the soft ground and ingest foreign objects every year, the kind of strain increased rolling resistance does to the airframe is nothing new, there are well defined procedures to getting the plane back on deck.

Ural Airlines is currently under sanctions. The plane in question is effectively stolen property (like most airlines the planes were purchased with loans/leases from the manufacturer's finance arm, and Ural stopped making payments last year). Russian airlines are operating planes without the correct service intervals.

That's true, however

1) There's plenty of reasons their planes could go bad without landing in fields. If they want to make sure this particular plane is fit to fly, they can.

2) Iran has been doing that for decades now.

> 15k

Difference in if that was '99 Corolla or '95 F40

Obviously not every plane has such an interesting past, but it'd be an interesting/morbid curiosity thing to have a service where you let it know what flights you're taking and it texts you during boarding with any questionable details of the specific aircraft you're getting on.

"This plane ran off the runway in any icy landing in Minneapolis back in '06" "This plane was decommissioned and sat idle in the desert for 15 months between owners" "This plane was used to evacuate US government workers from Afghanistan" ... Although I wonder how many would just be something boring like "this plane was delivered 2 years ago and has been in routine, problem-free service since".

Geez I'm already suspending disbelief when I get on a plane.. there's no way I'd ever fly again if this information was available.

Please write more!!

Hmm that could be a cool feature for Flighty. You just need to build a database of tail numbers and news events, which is much harder than “just”. I pay attention to tail numbers to see if I’m getting on the same plane again.

There was just a post on here about Boeing's 24/7 airline repair strike squad.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37691057

I would suggest you _not_ read it if you _don't_ want to learn how they will frequently have planes completely dissembled and repaired right under the eyes of waiting passengers. They even cover up company logos and plane identificaiton numbers so people like yourself don't feel unsafe in a recently repaired plane.

Planes you fly in will have many repairs. Standard repairs. One-off repairs. Completely custom engineered repairs.

An entire book of all the modifications from stock that has accumulated over the decades accompanies each plane.

I understand what you mean, but airplanes aren’t the same as cars in this way. It’s in the manufacturer’s and airliner’s interests for the airplane to be as maintainable as possible. Commercial airliners are designed to be used 24/7 for decades. These are long-term investments and idle time is expensive.

Airplanes and cars are regulated as differently as cars and watermelons. If an airliner literally encountered phantom electrical issues it would be grounded immediately, and they’d be fixed — that’s the point of all the civilian infrastructure, like the FAA, that we’ve built up around air travel. I know, it’s not perfect, there are mistakes and sometimes corruption, but for the most part it works. Many parts of every airplane in the sky have been replaced multiple times. It’s the only way they work.

Agree with this, the plane is relatively young as well only like 17 years old IIRC

You forget that Russia is under heavy sanctions (which likely lead to the accident in the first place), and they have a difficult time maintaining their normal planes, let alone those that crash land or take off from fields

Oh, so is this one of the stolen planes? And so they are unable to get spare parts?

Officially, no. In reality there are ways around it. There are always local or Chinese knockoffs, and other aircrafts that can be used as sources of spare parts. This one might well end up like this if too many things go wrong. It’s obviously suboptimal and a bit of a gamble.

According to https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/airbus-a320-200-ra-73..., the plane was leased from AerCap and registered as VQ-BFW (Bermuda) until 23 Mar 2022, and then re-registered as RA-73807 - so yes, this is one of the stolen planes. But the spare parts situation is not related to that...

I have found an article https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/aircraft-... about AerCap receiving 645 million dollars for 17 (or 18?) aircraft used by Aeroflot, but Ural Airlines being independent of Aeroflot, I don't think this plane is part of that agreement.

> If an airliner literally encountered phantom electrical issues it would be grounded immediately, and they’d be fixed

Not necessarily - I'm no aviator but from my understanding even if there are non-functioning systems the airplane can still fly: https://www.aviationsafetymagazine.com/features/inoperative-...

Here's an example of where that went wrong: https://youtu.be/iMMQ6-OfnL0?t=729

Although I do agree that the aviation industry takes safety very seriously.

The difference makes sense because if a car fails, it just stops and you tow it to get fixed. But if a plane fails, it falls out of the sky, killing everyone on board.

One accident comes to mind where a plane that was improperly repaired after a tailstrike crashed seven years later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_Flight_123. However, if the repair would have been done according to spec, that probably wouldn't have happened. Of course, they shouldn't just "clear out all the mud and straw", after they can hopefully fly it to a maintenance facility it has to be thoroughly inspected and any damaged parts replaced, but it is definitely possible (if the takeoff goes reasonably well of course) to get it into a condition where it can fly without problems for the rest of its expected service life. Two more examples of accident aircraft that were subsequently repaired and flew for many more years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider#Retirement, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_006#Afte....

Modern airliners are tested and engineered to an extremely high degree of reliability.

The manufacturer tells you how many flight cycles the airframe is certified for because they know how much stress cabin pressurization, takeoff, and landing have on the airframe and how long it will take to start developing cracks due to metal fatigue.

In fact they even have specified procedures for hard landings, gear failure landings, excessive G-load events, etc. Such things require specific inspections of specific areas, have specified tolerances for torsion/deformation, and in some cases they reduce the airframe's remaining service life. For example with high-G load event the mechanics must measure the angle of the wings and if there is more than X permanent deflection of the wing the wings must be repaired/replaced.

Emergency landing an airliner in a field is absolutely one of the scenarios covered by both airframe and engine manufacturers. They will have specific maintenance items to check for that along with advice on taking off from the field. I don't know about Airbus but Boeing even offers test pilots and emergency maintenance mechanics for such scenarios. If the airline pays Boeing will checkout the plain, make required repairs, and have their best pilots fly it back to your maintenance depot.

The plane did not crash. It just landed in the wrong place and is stranded.

I traveled in a commercial plane where I switched on the light in my seat and another light, four seats ahead and three seats to the right went on.