Chris Brame wrote:
This video has a lot more details, especially the post-crash recovery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF55AJgv_moCan someone out there translate the Hungarian titles?
If you read the full details on the upload, it's kinda telling -
Quote:
Early afternoon on 18th of July 2011. The aircraft is preparing for the 4th
take off.
What nobody expected came about. The ambulance and fire men arrived in seconds. Luckily the crew survived the accident without a scratch. The official standpoint is not known yet, but most likely the crash didn't happen for the sake of technician failure.
We share this video to avoid misunderstandings and guessing.
(Emphasis added)
I think that's the closest thing to admitting pilot error without actually doing it. I chose not to comment earlier as I'm not a jet pilot, much less a MiG or any other aircraft of that era or class pilot, but it did seem to me like he rotated hard, fast, and held it much longer than any other MiG-15/17 departure I've ever seen. Having watched the new video in HQ, you can clearly see evidence of him scraping the tail just before liftoff as well. Then Dudley and Vlado pretty much confirmed my fears, and that comment by the guys involved themselves I think is the "nail in the coffin".

Hopefully they'll be able to fix the plane and it will just be another very expensive lesson for a pilot and nothing more.