tragedy in Russia

[atomic charvel guy]

sad.............

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=375297

[Twitch]

Thats one thing that is just endlessly spooky to me is how fragile and volatile aviation is. You just dont get to say "ah shit" and try again a lot of the time. Especially in helicopters. The same spookiness however is one in the same of my fascination with them. I have dreams all the time of aviation disasters. The frailness of the science really speaks to me deep down somewhere, not in a morbid way, but in a way I really cant explain. As unfortunate and sad as a aviation disaster is, I cant help but look at the pictures over and over again and wonder how it happened and how an error so seemingly insignificant ends in total destruction.

[RacerX]

Already on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Lo...vl_plane_crash

[javert]

Awful... a whole bunch of players that I've followed over the years on that plane.

Twitch, it's not really "frailness of science", it's failure to do maintenance and follow safety procedures out of greed or whatever. There's a reason some of those Russian airline companies are banned from flying in Europa and other places in the world. I read in a Danish news paper that this particular plane was supposed to be scrapped in October.

[javert]

RacerX, yeah, when I first read about it, I wanted to see who was on the team and I looked it up on Wiki and there it was already...

[Twitch]

Twitch, it's not really "frailness of science", it's failure to do maintenance and follow safety procedures out of greed or whatever. There's a reason some of those Russian airline companies are banned from flying in Europa and other places in the world. I read in a Danish news paper that this particular plane was supposed to be scrapped in October.

See though, thats just it. You can neglect an automobile, train or ship and chances are, youll live through the aftermath, but not in a mode of aviation transportation. If one (all it takes is one) little thing gets overlooked, and thats all she wrote. Im not saying its a flawed technology either, just not the lazy, bull headed, or impatient mans technology. It demands the utmost respect and diligence. If not, then you get disaster, then its not a technology for the faint of heart either. Even the strongest of men will succumb to the graveness of the situation. Its just, to me, unfathomably sad to see or even here about such an occurrence. Never mind the loss of life, even if everyone survived, to see a plane or helicopter in that many pieces just speaks to the frailty of the technology. Theyre not supposed to do that. Theyre supposed to take off, fly around and come back to earth just as they left.

As man, we really push the envelope with air and space travel. Its something, I believe we were never meant to do. We have to go to extremes and gamble with our lives and lives of others to accomplish such feats. Unfortunately, we lose sometimes. However, Im not against either. Id love to be a helicopter pilot, or stand on the face of the moon.

[Larz]

Its something, I believe we were never meant to do. .

Using your space example, I think of the shuttle disasters....and a seemingly inconsequential little O-ring seal or whatever that you could probably get for $4.99 at NAPA auto parts.

But that "we aren't meant to do this" way of thinking is what motivates an incredibly small percent of inventive humans over time to dream up all sorts of crazy-sounding ideas and design all kinds of alien looking machinery and technology over many thousands of years that have benefitted all mankind (or killed off certain of it in the case of weapons advancements.)

Sad to hear about this flight though, I know a couple of those guys used to play for my local Avalanche team in the NHL.

[Hellbat]

It's sad that the Russians can built such amazing military attack aircraft and weapons systems but their civilian stuff is a throwback to the 60's and 70's and generally poorly maintained at that. Some of that is because they are generally engineered to operate in shitty environments so they are built tough and that causes a casual maintenance regimen.

Aircraft are such a complex system and keeping them running safely requires dedicated inspection and repair that goes beyond "throw a patch on it".

RIP to all the players and others who lost their lives to a tragic accident.