Few times in history has a plane crash impacted such a concentrated amount of people. Looking back, it is easy to think of a few. The Bashkortostan school children on a school trip, aboard Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 were among the deceased in a mid air collision with DHL Flight 611 in the dark skies above Überlingen. Another devastating example is the loss of the Marshall College football team in 1970. Southern Airways Flight 932 was a chartered flight carrying players, coaches, and boosters returning home to West Virginia after a loss. The DC-9 was landing in intense fog and rain and fell short, impacting with trees and the mountainside.
This time, tragedy struck Russian and their 3-time championship hockey team the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. While taking off, the Yakalov Yak-42 clipped a navigation tower and broke up on impact. The Yak-42 entered service in 1980, and had since been banned from flights to the European Union. The Yak-42 did not include the required safety equipment to operate outside of Russia. The plane itself, registry number RA-42434, was slated for heavy repairs later this year, and eventual decommissioning in 2012. Eye witness reports would indicate that upon take off, the Captain lost thrust and failed to abort. The initial facts are clear, the aircraft used more runway than it should have, and failed to climb above the 300 feet needed to clear the beacon tower. The tower, used for navigational aid, was positioned 1480 feet from the end of the runway.
Pilot error, although not eliminated, appears unlikely from initial reports. The Flight Data Recorders(FDR) have been recovered and transported to Moscow for review. The FDR will solidify, and perhaps explain in greater detail what transpired over the skies of Yaroslavl, Russia. Until The Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) publishes their preliminary report, we are left to review the evidence at our disposal and form our own hypothesis.