Helicopter Crash in Kamchatka Lake

Kurile Lake, Kamchatka

IBT reports: 

[An Mi-8] helicopter carrying 16 tourists and crew on a volcano sightseeing trip in Russia's far east crashed into [Kuril] lake on Thursday, leaving eight people feared dead and two others in serious condition, local officials said.

What makes this special is this line: 

Earlier this week, Redkin [owner of the tour company] made headlines in Russia when he admitted to killing a man he mistook for a bear.

 

Russian Military Mi-8 Helicopter

The Russian Military flew in some submersibles to help search for the wreckage. Evidently the lake is pretty deep. Coincidentally, they used the same model of helicopter as the one that crashed.

Vityaz-Aero Mi-8 Helicopter

Four years ago another helicopter from the same company crashed, injuring three of their passengers.

Kamchatka has appeared here before.

Via FlightAware

Shiveluch Volcano

Shiveluch Volcano

Volcano erupts on Kamchatka Peninsula in far eastern Russia. NASA tells us why we care:

At least 60 large eruptions have occurred during the last 10,000 years; the largest historical eruptions were in 1854 and 1964. Because Kamchatka is located along the major aircraft routes between North America/Europe and the Far East, this area is constantly monitored for potential ash hazards to aircraft.

This eruption seems to be pretty big, ash has been spread over 40,000 square miles and is as much as five inches deep in some places.

Russia

This image makes it look much worse that it really is. This place is still covered with snow, so what we see here is just a layer of ash on top of snowdrifts.

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Shanghai to Chicago

A painting of a WW2 scene of B-24 Liberator bombers & PBY Catalinas at Amchitka AAF.

An airliner traveling from Shanghai to Chicago encountered a problem the other day and diverted to Cold Bay, Alaska. Cold Bay is a hamlet out in the Aleutian Islands. Why is there this giant, jet capable runway in this out of the way spot? WW2, of course. Looking for more information I came across Paul Freeman's Abandoned & Little-Know Airfields, which has a page devoted to the Alaska, which is where I found the picture. Several airfields listed on the Alaska page are in the Aleutian Islands, and most of those were built during the early part of WW2.

Reading about the airliner incident brought a couple of questions to mind. The first one was why was a giant airliner carrying only a hundred people? Every plane I've been on recently has been packed to the gills. And then I plot the trajectories on a map, and I wonder why are they diverted to Cold Bay. Cold Bay is way south of the Great Circle route from Shanghai to Chicago. I smell a conspiracy! The CIA is probably up no good, and this engine malfunction story is just part of the coverup.

Then I do a little more checking. Seems airlines sometimes need to stage a plane to be ready to pick up a full load of passengers, but there just aren't enough people where the aircraft is, who want to go where the airplane is going, but the plane has a schedule to keep so it goes anyway, which means that sometimes they are darn near empty. Wish I could find one of those flights when I need one.

Shanghai to Chicago

Looking at the Great Circle route again I notice that it goes over North Korea and we don't want to be flying over North Korea. They might not be able to hit the broadside of a barn with a bowling ball, but let's not tempt fate, eh? The route also goes over the Kamchatka Peninsula, which is part of Russia. These days I am pretty sure airlines are allowed to fly over Russia, but maybe they need permission, and you know, maybe we ought not go there either. Plug those allowances into the route and Cold Bay looks like a more likely solution.

Smokin'

2019 Raikoke volcano - NASA / ISS

There is a string of islands that heads northeast from Japan until it reaches the Kamchatka Penninsula that hangs off the east coast of Russia. Raikoke is one of those islands. Blew up last month and NASA snapped this photo.What I noticed is the cloud of smoke and dust from the eruption has a relatively flat top. Why would that be? Could it be there is a limit to how high a cloud can go, even if it's an explosive cloud? I suppose it could be that smoke particles need a certain density of air to support them, and eventually you get so high and the air gets so thin that it won't support even microscopic smoke particles.

Thinking about microscopic smoke particles reminded me of a weird thing that happened a couple of years ago. Every summer, the forest fires spring up all over the western USA. One summer it had been particularly bad (this year maybe?). The air had been hazy and you could smell the smoke, even though the nearest fire was hundreds of miles away. But then the next day the sky was blue and the smell of smoke was gone, but the sky sure was bright. On normal, sun shiny day, I don't need my sunglasses. It's only when it's overcast that I wear them. But on that day the sky was so bright I needed my sunglasses, even though it was clear and not overcast. The sky seemed to sparkle. It wasn't something you could put your finger on, no bright spots appeared in my vision, but there was definitely something going on. Very weird.

Via Starts with a Bang!