other controls to compensate, pitching the nose up and increasing thrust. As a result, the plane began to stall; the autopilot, unable to cope, disengaged completely. A second, larger indicator light came on to alert the pilots of the complete disengagement, and this time they did notice it. At the same time, the autopilot's display screen went blank. To recover from the stall, an automatic system lowered the nose and put the plane into a nosedive. The reduced g-forces enabled Kudrinsky to retake his seat. Piskaryov then managed to pull out of the dive, but over-corrected, putting the plane in an almost vertical ascent, again stalling the plane, causing the plane to enter a spin. Although Kudrinsky and Piskaryov regained control and leveled out the wings, they did not know how far they had descended during the crisis and their altitude by then was too low to recover. The plane crashed at high vertical speed, estimated at . All 75 occupants died on impact. The aircraft crashed with its landing gear up, and all passengers had been prepared for an emergency, as they were strapped into their seats. No distress calls were made before the crash. Despite the struggles of both pilots to save the aircraft, it was later concluded that if they had just let go of the control column, the autopilot would have automatically taken action to prevent stalling, thus avoiding the accident. There was no evidence of a technical failure in the plane. The wreckage was located on a remote hillside in the Kuznetsk Alatau mountain chain, about east of Mezhdurechensk, Kemerovo Oblast, Russia; the flight data recorders were found on the second day of searching. Families of Russian victims placed flowers on the crash site, while families of Chinese and Taiwanese victims scattered pieces of paper with messages written on them around the area. Aftermath Aeroflot originally denied that children were in the cockpit, but accepted the fact when the Moscow-based magazine Obozrevatel (, ) published the transcript on the week of 28 September 1994. The Associated Press said, according to the transcript, "the Russian crew almost succeeded in saving the plane". The New York Times said, "A transcript of the tape printed in the magazine Obozrevatel shows that the Russian crew nearly managed to save the Airbus plane and the 75 people on board, but that it was hampered by the presence of children and