I believe it is safe to assume there was nothing wrong with the plane, or the pilot. The problem is the Indonesian flight control. I will remind you that it was the Indonesian flight controllers a few years ago that directed a BA 747, flying to Australia, to go through a volcanic eruption of gas....twice.

The Russians are intent on blaming America, since we all know the Russians never make a mistake. Indonesia is most likely intent on blaming anyone, or anything, but themselves. It should be interesting to see what tale they tell.

Naro, you are insane. It is a piece of cake to built a dumb passenger plane for a company like Sukhoi. Next, the Israeli avionics are installed only in old Russian jet fighters like in Romania to make them live longer. That's all. Don't mix the old MiGs with Sukhois. I bet you don't even have a private pilot license. So why don't you just shut up.

Flying at 6000 meter is crazy  when there are mountains of 6000m in the area.  I cant understand it. 
The biggest critics of the Superjets are the Aeroflot technicians and pilots.   The plane is not up to standards.  It is very sad  but true.  Russia should get out of the commercial passanger jet business.  The enormous investment  required for development of new commercial jets is just too great for a small country of 140 million people.  Selling a plane on the cheap is not a great selling point for the intelligent buyer.
Even buyers the Russian fighter planes often request installation of Israeli avionics.
Sometim es I think that Russians forget that they are no longer the huge and great Soviet Union, but only a small part of it by population and resources.

That MOCA minimum obstacle clearance altitude is nonsense in this case. It is used under IFR Instrument Flight Rules operations only by the FAR Federal Aviation Regulations. I doubt that a demo flight was conducted in clouds or fog and therefore on instruments. I believe that the flight was conducted under VFR conditions, Visual Flight Rules, and therefore, MOCA would not be applicable. Evidently, for a better effect, the captain wanted to fly at lower altitudes, to impress the passengers. As far as Universal is concerned, the Bulov scenario would be possible only if the airliner was on autopilot at that time, which I doubt. The captain probably hand flew the machine to demonstrate the maneuverability of the aircraft. It would be possible only in the case of the autopilot malfunction, especially the On/Off circuit, or if there was built in remote override to this system. This, of course, would be handy in cases when an airliner is hijacked and it is necessary to control the plane remotely, leaving hijackers with no capability to steer the aircraft. I hope that Sukhoi engineers knew what system they had in. In essence, the autopilot would have to be turned on remotely, while disabling the autopilot disconnect circuits. leaving the pilots helpless. But in this case, it would be on the radio because both Captain and his first officer would surely not stay quiet. Just like in Poland, it looks like the pilots were taking chances, though for different reasons. I don't believe the Universal or anybody else is that wicked and risk the company's reputation for such an act. The more Sukhoi planes are built the money the Universal makes. And that's the bottom line. This is to answer the question Cui bonum. Universal is acutely aware of the security issues and protects its products from any misuse by anybody, including the government, Airbus, Boeing, or GRU. They are in for the money, and recognition. 

Typical anti-rest of the world comments on here. Russia has taken too much time to look outside of the box. Sorry, you guys need to do your homework first.

The "Black Boxes" will remain in Russian control even though they are made in the USA. If someone knows of any Russian manufacturers...let me know.

Is there any connection to the flight controls through the black box? ie, is it possible for the said box to actually control the aircraft?
If so, then all aircraft fitted with these boxes could be ...................
I just thought they recorded data.

LOL already the conspiracy theories abound. It is was it is people. The pilot dropped to an unsafe altitude, likely to demonstrate aspects of the aircrafts handling. Then an accident happened.
No politics, no tragedy, just a tragic mistake. __________ ____________________ ____________________ ________________
  The west hates and persistently discriminates against Russians. Any Russian success creates immense amount of pain and anxiety in the West. I know that!  ______________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________


Oh yeah? Thats funny, cause the western news comments boards arent filled with anti Russian comments. When something happens  in the west, no one blames Russia, or claims some KGB/FSB folks are behind all the worlds troubles, pushing some buttons in the Kremlin. No one says anything really about Russia. 

In one day, I can collect more anti-USA comments on RT than I can collect anti-anything comments on Western news sites over 10 years. Seems to me if you have a problem with a group of people providing unjustified and unrelenting hate towards another group, maybe you should look in your own backyard first.

There is some sad systematic pattern of Russian disasters. Violations of rules, macho, bad service, and often in the most destructive circumstances, airshows or  as the crash some months ago, with the hockeyteam. Don´t forget Kursk. Security  measures far behind the Western world. Oh, no, not again...

If the Russians find the box, it will be gone from the public eye.

I continue to believe the Indonesia-made Sukhoi, but I want to know exactly what causes the plane crashed.

Who is this news anchor?

ofcourse, everyone is deeply sympathetic about the sukhoi crash,theirfamilies and friends must be devastated. my regular habit is to watch rt.com. continuing a lifelong habit as an admirer of the former soviet union. 1 used to listen to radio moscow in the late 20s, we were entirely behind the revolution, things change, naturally, but not always to oursatisfaction. however, best wishes to all, especially my friends in tomsk.PS. try to avoid punning in your headlines, please

Quote: "Rosnadi says the pilot dropped to 6,000 feet during the flight, a violation of the minimum obstacle clearance altitude (MOCA) in mountainous areas which is around 11,000 feet.The plane had been flying at 10,000 feet, but the pilot reportedly made a request to ground control to drop to 6,000 feet."

Sounds to me, ground control is incompetent group of people... not only they allowed aircraft to fly bellow minimum 11,000 feet, when pilot requested to drop to 6,000 feet... they authorized it? Some things don't make sense in this tragic event... My condolences to the families.