The crash of a Russian-made passenger jet into the flanks of an Indonesian volcano has put a spotlight on the notoriously informal atmosphere aboard new aircraft during manufacturer demonstrations _ known here as "joy flights." 
 
 The logo of Sukhoi Co. is clearly visible, center, bottom, among the wreckage of a Sukhoi Superjet-100 scattered on the mountainside in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia, Friday, May 11, 2012. The crash of... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo released by Sergey Dolya, cabin crew serve passengers during a flight over Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. The Russian-made Sukhoi jet plane with 50 people on board, including... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo released by Sergey Dolya, a Sukhoi Superjet-100 takes off from Halim Perdanakusuma airport in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012 on it's second demonstration flight of the day. The... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo released by Sergey Dolya, captain pilot Alexander Yablontsev, left and first officer Alexander Kotchetkov pose with unidentified cabin crew next to their Sukhoi Superjet-100 prior to a demonstration... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Sunday, Aug. 21, 2011 file photo a Russian Sukhoi Super Jet 100 takes off during the MAKS-2011, the International Aviation and Space Show in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, Russia. A new Russian-made... (Associated Press) 
 
 These junkets for potential buyers commonly see passengers join or cancel at the last minute, wreaking havoc to manifest lists. Pilots eager to show off the versatility of their planes often make lightning-fast ascents and buzz famous landmarks. 
 
 With no sign yet of the black boxes, it is not clear what caused the Sukhoi Superjet 100 to smash into the side of Mount Salak on Wednesday, presumably killing all 45 people on board, and sending debris raining down a densely forested, jagged slope. 
 
 An investigation by a joint team of Indonesian and Russian experts is expected to take at least a year. 
 
 There is nothing to suggest the pilot did anything wrong. But the disaster is a reminder of the continuing concerns of air-safety specialists about demonstration flights. That's true not just here in Indonesia _ where several invitations from Boeing, Bombardier and other manufacturers land on the desks of airline executives and industry experts every year _ but globally. 
 
 Tom Ballantyne, a Sydney-based aviation expert, has gone on many such trips . 
 
 "The purpose of these flights, obviously, is to show off the aircraft to potential customers," he said. 
 
 "If they are flying over a landmark, they might circle around it so the passengers can get a better look," he said. "They might fly a little lower or show the rate of climb of the aircraft." 
 
 That's not to say they don't follow the rules, he said, or push the planes beyond what they are capable. 
 
 "But there's definitely a bit of showing off," he said. 
 
 With 240 million people and a rapidly growing middle class hungry for cheap air travel, manufactures will continue to flock to Indonesia, as evidenced by a purchase late last year by the little-known airline Lion Air. 
 
 Its order of 230 planes from Boeing Co. was the manufacturer's biggest ever, and the carrier said it will need smaller aircraft as well. Lion isn't alone. Many other Indonesian carriers, some of which don't even have websites, also are trying to build up or modernize their fleets. 
 
 The ill-fated Superjet was carrying dozens of representatives from local airlines and journalists on what was supposed to be a quick, 50-minute flight to the southern part of Java island and back. Pictures posted on social networking sties like Facebook showed excited passengers, smiling and waving in front of the twin-engine jet before takeoff. Others sipped champagne handed out in the cabin by glamorous air hostess wearing electric-blue pencil skirts, creating an unmistakable party atmosphere. 
 
 Soon after takeoff from a Jakarta airfield, however, the Russian pilot and co-pilot asked air traffic control for permission to drop from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet (3,000 meters to 1,800 meters). 
 
 The plane disappeared from the radar immediately after _ with new satellite imagery revealing heavy cloud cover and rain. It's not clear if that's why the crew asked to drop or if they got a response. Officials here say they didn't. 
 
 The pilots on demonstration flights are known to be experienced, often having spent years flying for major airlines. 
 
 Alexander Yablontsev, in charge of Wednesday's flight, was no exception, logging 10,000 hours in the Sukhoi Superjet and its prototypes. 
 
 "He was our best testing pilot, overseeing everything from the designing of the aircraft to its certification," said Mikhail Pogosian, head of United Aircraft Corporation, which built the Superjet. 
 
 Even so, at least one decision has come into question _ the flight path. 
 
 "As I understand it, it was the pilot who asked to pass Mount Salak," said Ruth Simatunpang, a former investigator with the National Commission on Safety Transportation, adding that she was surprised given its infamous reputation. 
 
 The long dormant volcano has been the scene of seven crashes in the last decade, Wednesday's by far the most deadly, trailed by a 2008 Indonesian air force accident that killed 18 people. 
 
 Its jagged peaks are often shrouded in heavy mist. 
 
 "Usually, in a demo flight, you would go out of your way to avoid a route that is full of obstacles," said Simatunpang. "But almost everyone knows Salak is dangerous and that the weather is extremely unpredictable." 
 
 Like many others, she was surprised that the pilot would seek such a sharp descent so close to the 7,000-foot-high (2,100-meter-high) mountain. 
 
 "But it's much too early to say," she said. "We won't know anything until we get hold of the voice and data recorders in the black box." 
 
 Last-minute passengers switches also caused confusion, with numbers flip-flopping at least five times after the crash, while authorities tried to figure out who was aboard. 
 
 As it turned out, the final manifest was not given to officers on the ground, as is standard procedure; it was on the doomed plane. 
 
 Suharso Monoarfa, a former government minister who now has interests in the aviation industry, said he was invited on the flight, but had to cancel at the last minute. 
 
 "I was invited inside the jet to look around with my wife and son," he said. "It was exciting, the crew was very welcoming and treated us very nicely, explaining everything I needed to know." 
 
 They again asked if he wouldn't like to get on board, saying his family was more than welcome to join. 
 
 "Actually, I would have loved it, especially with my son, but it was a 50-minute joy flight, and that was just too long. I had a meeting to get to," he said. 
 
 He said he was horrified when he heard what had happened. 
 
 "My heart was pounding when I heard the plane had lost contact," he said. "It's unbelievable. How could such a sophisticated plane go missing and crash?" 
 
 Ballantyne, the aviation expert, said pilots on demo flights often do things that a normal scheduled airline service would not. 
 
 But, he said, they do have to contact air traffic control to ask for permission _ as the pilots of the Superjet did _ before making any such maneuver, and they would descend only within acceptable rates of the aircraft. 
 
 "You wouldn't expect him to do anything out of the envelope, even with customers as passengers aboard." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini contributed to this report. ||||| The Superjet had just entered Indonesian airspace on its demonstration flight when a half-naked passenger wielding a shiny, silver trident made his way into the cockpit. Sergey Dolya, a 39-year-old Russian travel journalist and aviation blogger, had bared his chest, tied on a long white beard and donned a crown made of silver paper. 
 
 Dolya had slipped into the role of the god Neptune north of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. "I imitated an equator-crossing ceremony 10,000 meters above sea level," he says. "Usually only seamen do that." 
 
 Dolya wanted to celebrate the fact that a Sukhoi SSJ 100 ("Superjet") had penetrated the Southern Hemisphere for the first time. All the hopes of Russia's aviation industry rest on this passenger jet, designed by a company with an 80-year history of manufacturing military aircraft. 
 
 The plane was on a demonstration tour aimed at breaking into the dynamic Asian market. President Nursultan Nazarbayev had already inspected the Superjet when it made an intermediate stop in Kazakhstan. Now the Russians were hoping to make an impression on potential buyers in Indonesia. 
 
 The mood on board was fantastic, and Dolya reports there was champagne. In the cockpit, the copilot snapped a photo of the faux Neptune with his cell phone. Indonesian flight attendants wearing high heels and short skirts posed for pictures. 
 
 A Level-Headed Pilot 
 
 A day later, the Russian crew of eight and all of the plane's 37 passengers were dead. It would appear that Alexander Yablontzev, the captain on the flight, had allowed himself to become infected by the general exuberance during the Wednesday afternoon demonstration flight. 
 
 Strictly speaking, hardly any other pilot was better qualified to man the controls on the test flight in Jakarta than the 57-year-old veteran. Friends describe him as a level-headed pilot. He had logged over 10,000 flying hours on more than 80 different types of aircraft. And when the Superjet made its maiden flight in May 2008, Yablontzev was the test pilot sitting in its cockpit. 
 
 Russian photographer Marina Lystseva likewise has nothing bad to say about Yablontzev. The young Moscow resident and friend of Dolya was very lucky: The only reason she wasn't on the afternoon flight was because she had already taken enough pictures on the morning flight. She has known Captain Yablontzev for a long time and says he loved the airplane and "wanted the jet to succeed with every fiber of his body." 
 
 There is much to suggest that this is precisely what led him and his passengers to their demise. Indeed, the pressure to make sure the Superjet mission succeeded was massive. Only in February, when he was still Russia's prime minister, President Vladimir Putin signed a 43 billion ($55 billion) program whose stated goal was to help Moscow's aviation industry capture 10 percent of the global market for passenger aircraft by 2025. At present, its market share is less than 1 percent. 
 
 To date, most of Sukhoi's Superjet sales have been to Aeroflot, Russia's state-run airline, at a cut-rate price of just 15 million apiece. But the Kremlin envisions the SSJ 100 as a future global competitor to aircraft that are twice as expensive, especially Canada's Bombardier CRJ and Brazil's Embraer 190. 
 
 The Most Spectacular Air Show Possible 
 
 Many experts doubt the Superjet will be able to establish a foothold in the highly competitive global market, and the embarrassing disaster in Indonesia makes its prospects even grimmer. For now, the important thing will be to swiftly determine the cause of the crash. Did the aircraft malfunction, or is the crew to blame? "Pilot error would naturally be the best outcome for Sukhoi," says William Voss, president of the Virginia-based Flight Safety Foundation. 
 
 Even if technical problems are not ruled out, the evidence points in that direction. The flight path alone, which has been reconstructed using radar data, leads one to suspect that the Superjet's final flight was mainly about one thing: offering potential buyers of the competitively priced regional jet the most spectacular air show possible. 
 
 Immediately after taking off on Wednesday afternoon, Captain Yablontzev turned south, flew over the city of Bogor and made an initial circle around the volcano on whose steep sides the flight would soon meet its tragic end. The crew then requested permission to descend to 1,800 meters (5,900 feet), though its reasons for doing so remain a mystery. "In this mountainous region," says Voss, the aviation expert, "there is no reason for a sensible pilot to descend to such an altitude." 
 
 Nevertheless, Yablontzev steered the airplane directly toward Mount Salak, the dormant volcano the Jakarta Post has dubbed "an airplane graveyard." Indeed, several aircraft have crashed into the mountain, including an Indonesian Air Force plane in a June 2008 accident that claimed 18 lives. 
 
 It was precisely here that Yablontzev wanted to show off the aircraft's abilities. To make matters worse, massive clouds were gathering around the mountain at the time. Locals consider the area the rainiest and stormiest in all of Indonesia. 
 
 Reckless Bravado 
 
 A number of factors make approaching the volcano an incalculable risk, including steep mountain ridges, the steaming-hot rainforest and the chaotic air-circulation patterns. What's more, the airplane was most likely shooting above the rugged landscape at a speed of 130 meters per second (290 miles per hour). 
 
 It is almost impossible to safely maneuver passenger planes like the Superjet under such circumstances -- particularly because, unlike with military jets, the engines of these planes only react to thrust commands with a slight delay. For this reason, passenger airlines are supposed to maintain a 1,000-meter safety buffer from mountains -- a rule that Captain Yablontzev apparently violated. "The crash casts a spotlight on the mind-set of Russian aviation," says Heinrich Grossbongardt, an aviation expert based in the northern German city-state of Hamburg. With any Western airline, he adds, such behavior would be viewed as reckless bravado. 
 
 Images from the crash site show that the airplane was banking to the right when it slammed into the mountainside. This could indicate that Yablontzev was making a final attempt to pull the airplane up and over the mountain range. "The pilot had absolutely no experience with the area's unique topographical traits," notes Jan Richter, a Hamburg-based flight-safety expert. 
 
 What's more, one photo taken by the blogger Dolya right before the flight suggests that the automatic terrain warning system was turned off. The photo shows part of the instrument panel in the plane's cockpit, and the button corresponding to the warning system clearly shows a "fault" message and that it is deactivated. 
 
 'Like Being Born Again' 
 
 This wouldn't be the first time that hubris had led to fatal consequences in an airplane demonstration show. Probably the most famous example was the 1988 crash of an Airbus A320 during an air show in the Alsatian town of Habsheim. While flying over the runway, the jet suddenly dropped and slammed into a nearby forest. A year earlier, an Airbus A300 crashed during a practice flight near the Egyptian city of Luxor. And, in 1994, the test flight of an Airbus A330 in Toulouse, France, ended in catastrophe. As a consequence, Airbus' main competitor has a hard and fast rule: At aviation trade fairs, Boeing pilots are forbidden from making any kind of risky maneuver no matter how much they might wow potential buyers. 
 
 For Sukhoi, the crash could bring an already simmering crisis to a boil. Although more than 200 of the planes have been ordered, a lack of qualified personnel and sufficient expertise in the serial-production process has meant that only eight of the Superjets are currently in use: seven by Russia's Aeroflot and one by the Armenian airline Armavia. 
 
 What's more, even these customers are unhappy. In March, Konstantin Mokhna, Aeroflot's deputy chief engineer, humiliated Sukhoi when he complained about "technical problems" and delays in replacement-part deliveries. To corroborate his complaints, Mokhna cited some embarrassing figures: Instead of being able to keep his Superjets in service for the industry average of eight to nine hours a day, he could only use them for 3.9 hours per day. "For potential buyers, these revelations are even more unsettling than the crash in Indonesia," says New York-based aviation expert Richard Aboulafia. 
 
 Meanwhile, Dolya, the Neptune-impersonating blogger, and Lystseva, the photographer, have been walking through Jakarta as if in a trance. They still can't grasp what has happened. "By a hair, we would also be lying dead on this horrifying mountainside," Lystseva says. "It's like being born again." 
 
 Russian aviation, on the other hand, will have to continue waiting for its renaissance.
– The crash of a Russian jet during a demonstration flight in Indonesia last week may have been caused by pilot bravado, Der Spiegel finds. The flight was all about offering a spectacular show to journalists and potential buyers, and the captain of the Sukhoi SuperJet-100, despite his inexperience, appears to have attempted a foolhardy move before crashing into the side of a mountain, experts say. Steep mountain ridges and chaotic air circulation patterns make the area tricky even for local pilots, but the Sukhoi pilot "had absolutely no experience with the area's unique topographical traits," a flight safety expert says. Authorities say they were surprised by the pilot's request to approach Mount Salak, which has been the site of seven other plane crashes over the last decade. The crash has put the spotlight on manufacturer demonstration flights, dubbed "joy flights" for their informal atmosphere, notes AP. "The purpose of these flights, obviously, is to show off the aircraft to potential customers," says an aviation expert who has gone on many such trips. "If they are flying over a landmark, they might circle around it so the passengers can get a better look. They might fly a little lower or show the rate of climb of the aircraft." All 45 people on the Sukhoi flight are presumed dead, and investigators will know more about the cause of the crash when its black box is recovered.