Back to the USSR rhetoric?
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Russia's spies, airspace officials and the media have provided a touch of Cold War-era comic relief to the otherwise tragic loss of a new Sukhoi Superjet 100, which crashed into mountains south of Jakarta earlier this month.
The Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda reported last week that Russian intelligence agencies are exploring the possibility that the United States may have had a hand in sabotaging the short-haul jet, which was on a demonstration tour of Southeast Asia.
Citing sources in the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, the newspaper said that interference from a US air force base near Jakarta could have caused the Russian jet’s on-board avionics to go haywire in the crash, which killed all 45 people aboard.
“We know they have special equipment that can cut communications between an aircraft and the ground or interfere with the parameters on-board,” one GRU general was quoted as saying.
Are they for real?
The closest American air base is nowhere near Jakarta, but thousands of kilometres away on the Pacific island of Guam. Once we get over laughing at the idea, isn’t that too far over the horizon for a Star Wars-type laser beam?
American officials are both amused and bemused, pointing to the controversy aroused in fiercely nationalistic Indonesia recently when Washington announced that US Marines would begin training at a base in far-off northern Australia.
The Russians may have been referring to the US Embassy Beechcraft C-12, which operated from Jakarta’s Halim Airbase for 20 years but hasn’t been allowed back since it was sent for cockpit upgrades in 2009.
This is not the first time supposed US death rays have been blamed for Russian aerospace setbacks. Last year, a former Russian official claimed “powerful radars” in Alaska were responsible for the loss of the Mars-bound Fobos Grunt space probe.
The investigation report into the failure, issued only in Russian and in language that confused foreign experts, noted that “cosmic rays” had knocked out two computer circuits simultaneously.
Russian Federal Space Agency head Vladimir Popovkin appeared to buy into the conspiracy theory as well, saying it was “unclear’ why four spacecraft failed last year as they travelled on the far side of the earth.
“I don't want to blame anyone,” he went on in somewhat ominous fashion, “but today there are some very powerful counter-measures against spacecraft whose use can’t be excluded”.
Even Sukhoi executives have joined in the paranoia, suggesting that the crash of their plane was “industrial sabotage” aimed at destroying the market for the first civilian jetliner built in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It is difficult to see how the 95-seat Sukhoi can be any serious competition for Boeing or other US plane-makers. Many of the 244 Boeing 737s in the fleets of airlines in the Southeast Asian region are newer models that carry only between 110 and 200 passengers.
Sales of the fly-by-wire Sukhoi have been suspended in Indonesia until the outcome of the crash inquiry, but Kartika Airlines has 30 on order and Sky Aviation has signed a contract for 12 more.
The Sukhoi website still carries a May 3 item announcing the start of the Superjet’s “Welcome Asia” road show, taking in Kazahkstan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Indonesia, Laos and Vietnam.
The plane disappeared from radar screens on May 9 soon after the pilot was given permission to reduce altitude from 3,300 metres to 2,000 metres just to the east of the 2,220-metre Mount Salak volcano.
The claims of sabotage mask two serious questions: Did a technical fault lead to the crash? And why did Jakarta Air Traffic Control authorise the pilot to reduce altitude in an area known for turbulence and often poor visibility?
A technical fault – if that proves to be the case – could doom the plane before it even goes into full production, given the fact that systems on the aircraft should have warned the crew it was heading straight into a cliff.
The latter puzzle is already raising questions about whether Indonesia’s air controllers are feeling the pressure from a dramatic increase in traffic, which has seen the number of airline passengers jump from 43 million to 66 million in the space of just two years.
