Rare natural phenomenon possible cause for the FlyDubai FZ981 crash

Evgeny Tishkovets, a leading specialist from the Fobos weather monitoring center, said a rare natural phenomenon might have been the cause of FlyDubai FZ981 crash on March 19, 2016, that killed all 62 people on board.

"In the vicinity of the landing field, there was a rare phenomenon called ‘streaming flow,' which means that the speed of wind in the area exceeded 100 km/h (62 mph), or 30 m/s," the expert said as quoted by Sputnik.

'Streaming flow' usually occurs at heights of 5 km (16 400 feet), but in Rostov-on-Don it came down to a level of several hundred meters.

"The ‘streaming flow' could be observed at a height of 629 meters (2 063 feet) and outspread to almost 10 kilometers," he said. "Generally, planes try to avoid such phenomena, except for the situations when the back wind is used deliberately to save fuel at a height of 9 kilometers."

According to the official reports, the aircraft crashed 253 m (830 feet) left of the runway. During a press conference, the local Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES) chief stated that "the plane completely disintegrated at the very beginning of the runway."

Video courtesy RT

Video courtesy RT

Featured image credit: RT (YT video screenshot)