Talk:Aeroflot Flight 120

Lost in translation?

In this sentence: "...its crew saw fragments of an aircraft on the southeast slope of Mount Kushtang... It was determined that the aircraft, flying at an altitude of 3700 meters at an angle of 45-60°..." Considering that the aircraft hit the southeast side of a mountain, perhaps the word angle should actually be heading? In common aviation usage where I live, the word angle usually refers to an angle of bank, climb, or descent, whereas the compass direction of the aircraft is its heading. Carguychris (talk) 15:37, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

One source states "The initial blow fell on the left plane at an angle of 45-60 °" Sounds like the left wing struck the mountain first at a 45-60 degree angle relative to the mountain face. - Samf4u (talk) 16:08, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

So it's unclear whether this is a horizontal or vertical angle? Carguychris (talk) 16:16, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

A search failed to turn up any new info on this so all we have to go on is this from the second reference listed "A search group sent to the site found debris on the southeastern slope of the Kushtang mountain of the Baysun-Tau range 27 km north-east of the Baysun site at an altitude of 3,501 m at the base of a sheer cliff. The plane collided with it 200 meters higher. The initial blow fell on the left plane at an angle of 45-60 °". I certainly don't want to violate original research but we can eliminate pitch and yaw angles because looking up at an impact mark on a sheer face from 200 meters would make it very difficult determine either. Roll is almost certainly what is being described here. It would be easy to estimate the bank angle of the wing at impact. The only other possibility is aircraft heading as you mentioned. In my experience with Russian accident reports I find it highly unlikely that is what is being described. - Samf4u (talk) 16:14, 26 July 2019 (UTC)