In less than six months, two major terrorist attacks on passenger airliners occurred in the Middle East, which today is the most unstable and “hottest” region in the world. One of them is Russian. It seems that terrorists from radical Islamic groups have relied on an attack against civil aviation.
The fall of 2015 was overshadowed for Russia by the largest air terrorist attack in the history of the country's civil aviation: on October 31, 2015, a Kagalymavia plane was blown up in the sky over the Sinai Peninsula over Egyptian territory. 214 people died. And now - exactly six months later - a new terrorist attack in the same region. On May 19, an EgyptAir Airbus A320 was most likely destroyed over the Mediterranean Sea. There were 66 people on board.
The Russian plane was operating charter flight 7K-9268 on the route Sharm el-Sheikh - St. Petersburg. The aircraft of the Egyptian company is flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo. Not everything is clear with the Egyptian company’s plane yet. It simply disappeared from radar screens, contact with it was lost, and for a long time nothing was known about the fate of the liner.
However, the wreckage of the missing airbus was later discovered in the Mediterranean Sea south of the Greek island of Karpathos in the southeastern Aegean Sea. It became clear that if the terrorist attack was not the only version of the disaster, it was clearly the main one.
On both sides, most of the passengers were tourists flying to vacation in Egyptian resorts or returning from there. And now there are two major terrorist attacks in a fairly short time. And the terrorists' goal has been achieved. A stunning blow has been dealt to the Egyptian economy, for which today, in the current crisis and politically unstable state, tourism is almost the only source of income. In addition, these incidents caused a serious resonance throughout the world.
Airplanes are not a random choice for terrorists around the world. The main weapon of terrorists is not explosives. The main weapons: maximum publicity, panic and fear. And it is civil aviation that is the most convenient tool. The terrorist attack is not only aimed at people who are on board the aircraft being destroyed by terrorists. But also on their family members, on all those for whom a catastrophe in the sky will not just be a line in newspaper reports. And it will be something personal and close.
In addition, despite the fact that aviation is not the most dangerous mode of transport - this is just a common myth, accidents on the railway are much more frequent - it is very difficult to counteract terrorist attacks in aviation. Security measures at airports are already close to the absurd limit; soon, due to checks, you will have to arrive at the airport 4-5 hours before your flight in order to pass all the necessary checks. But even this does not provide complete security. Aviation is the most vulnerable of all modes of transport.
In addition, the destruction of an aircraft at an altitude of up to 10 kilometers at a speed of at least 600 kilometers per hour leaves no chance for any of the people on board. Their death is almost inevitable. And each time the number of victims goes up to tens, or even hundreds of people.
We will remind you of the largest terrorist attacks in the air that occurred in the last quarter of the 20th and early 21st centuries.
Attack of September 11, 2001 in the USA
This is the most famous and largest and, perhaps, the most effective terrorist attack in the history of mankind, unless, of course, you count the tragedies of Guernica, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki among terrorist attacks (and this would be logical).
On September 11, 2001, a group of terrorists hijacked four airliners and used them as air fire ships. In the navy, fireships are ships designed to ram and blow up enemy ships. Terrorists have used civilian aircraft in exactly the same way, attacking several targets in the United States.
This terrorist attack leaves many questions. Despite the fact that Al-Qaeda 1, an ultra-terrorist Islamic organization of the Wahhabi persuasion and its leader, took responsibility for the attack Osama bin Laden, many questions remain about who organized this attack and why.
Objects and results of the attack:
NY
1) American Airlines Flight 11, Boeing 767-200. Crashed into the north side of the north tower (WTC-1) at the 94–98 floor level.
2) United Airlines Flight 175, Boeing 767-200. Crashed into the south side of the south tower (WTC-2) at the 78th–85th floor level.
Victims: 60 passengers and crew members, more than 600 people, were on the upper floors of the south tower of the World Trade Center.
In total, 2,753 people died in New York.
Pentagon
3) American Airlines Flight 77, Boeing 757-200. Crashed into the Pentagon headquarters building of the US Department of Defense in Arlington, Virginia.
Victims: 125 people on the ground and 59 passengers and crew.
Pennsylvania
United Airlines Flight 93, Boeing 757-200 (tail number N591UA). It fell in a field near the town of Shanksville in southwestern Pennsylvania, not reaching 240 km from Washington, which was the target of the terrorists.
Victims: 40 people.
Ireland, 23 June 1985
The largest plane crash in international waters, the first terrorist attack on Boeing 747 aircraft and the largest terrorist attack in Canadian history. Then, Sikh terrorists fighting against the Indian authorities for the secession of their region blew up an Indian civilian AirIndia Boeing-747 airliner flying on the route Montreal-London-Delhi-Bombay in the air over the Atlantic.
Objects and results of the attack: flight AI182 AirIndia Boeing 747-237B. An internal explosion and complete destruction of an airliner in the air off the coast of Ireland, 70 kilometers from the Irish city of Cork.
Victims: 329 passengers and crew.
Scotland, 21 December 1988
It was the largest terrorist attack on British soil. A Boeing 747 airliner en route from London to New York was blown up in mid-air over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. Not only the passengers and crew of the aircraft died, but also people on the ground. The wreckage of the plane crashed directly into residential areas of Lockerbie.
The United States and Britain immediately blamed the Libyan intelligence services for the terrorist attack, and responsibility for the attack was placed personally on the Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi. This version was later questioned.
Objects and result of the attack: flight PA103 Pan American Boeing 747-121. An internal explosion completely destroyed the airliner in mid-air, with debris falling within the city limits of Lockerbie.
Victims: 259 passengers and crew and 11 Lockerbie residents.
Sahara, Tenere Desert, September 19, 1989
The largest air terrorist attack in central Africa and the continuation of the history of confrontation between Western intelligence services and the Libyan authorities. The McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 airliner of the French airline Union de transports aériens (UTA), flying on the route Brazzaville-N'Djamena-Paris, was blown up over the Tenere desert in Nigeria in the vicinity of the city of Bilma.
Once again, the Libyan intelligence services were blamed. And again no one proved anything.
Objects and result of the attack: UTA flight UT-772 McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30. Internal explosion and complete destruction of the aircraft. The debris fell in the Tenere desert.
Victims: 170 passengers and crew members.
Egypt, Sinai Peninsula, October 31, 2015
The largest terrorist attack over Egyptian territory and in the history of Russian civil aviation. As a result of the carelessness of Sharm el-Sheikh airport staff, terrorists from the Sinai branch of the Islamic State 1 (IS 1) terrorist group banned in the Russian Federation managed to smuggle explosives on board a Russian plane. As a result, an Airbus A321-231 airliner of the Russian airline Metrojet (Kogalymavia), flying from Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt) to St. Petersburg, was blown up in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, 100 km from the city of El-Arish.
Objects and result of the attack: Flight 9268 Airbus A321-231 Metrojet (“Kogalymavia”). An internal explosion that completely destroyed the aircraft.
Victims: 224 passengers and crew members.
The danger of terrorist attacks increases every year. And we should hope that Russia’s participation in the fight against global terrorism will finally stop this alarming trend.
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1 The organization is prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation.
A motley crowd of tourists, a vibrant underwater world that attracts divers from all over the world - all this attracts travelers. Russians were eager to go there as if they were going to a second dacha: at least a week to rest from work and bask in the sun. Whole families flew until the plane crash in Egypt on October 31, 2015 forced the entire country to shudder.
Tragic incident
A tourist group from the Brisco company was returning on a charter flight from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. Despite the early morning (departure at 5.50 local time), the passengers were in excellent spirits. They posted pictures of their successful vacation on social networks. It was Saturday, and on Monday many had to plunge into work; some had work, others had to study.
The Airbus A321-231 EI-ETJ airliner, which arrived from Samara, took 217 passengers on board. They and seven crew members had to be in the Northern capital by 12 noon, where many had relatives and friends waiting at the airport. Having reached a given altitude of 9400 meters in 23 minutes, at a speed of 520 km/h the aircraft suddenly disappeared from the radar. At 6.15 (7.15 Moscow) the plane crashed in the Sinai Peninsula near El-Arish airport - the hottest spot in Egypt, where government troops were confronted by Al-Qaeda Islamists.
Versions of the tragedy
Those meeting flight 9268 at Pulkovo Airport anxiously watched the board, which displayed the information: “Arrival delayed.” And by evening, the whole country knew that the wreckage of the aircraft that had disappeared from radar had been discovered by the Egyptian authorities. Scattered over a length of 13 kilometers, with the tail section torn off, they were shown on television, which gave rise to many versions of experts about the possible causes of the disaster. Three were considered the most reliable:
- Technical problems associated either with engine failure or metal fatigue. In the tail section, traces of skin repairs were found after the aircraft touched the asphalt with its tail while landing at Cairo airport in 2001. The resulting microcrack could cause the destruction of the aircraft as it climbed.
- The plane crash in Egypt was caused by the crew's mistakes.
- Terrorist act.
The IAC commission, headed by Egyptian representative Ayman al-Mukkadam, began working at the site of the tragedy. It included representatives of Russia, France, Germany, the USA and Ireland. After studying the evidence and decoding, the first two versions were found unfounded.
Aircraft
The A321 crash over the Sinai Peninsula was the largest in the history of Egypt and modern Russia. The airbus belonged to the Kogalymavia company, which underwent a thorough inspection. It was found that after the 2001 emergency, the aircraft was repaired in France at the manufacturer's plant, after which all the necessary tests were carried out. Over 18 years of operation, the airliner flew less than 50% of its service life (57,428 hours) and was in good condition. This is evidenced by weekly technical checks, the last of which was carried out on October 26, 2015. The flight recorders did not detect any system malfunction. Until the 23rd minute, the flight proceeded quite normally.
Crew
Forty-eight-year-old crew commander Valery Nemov is a graduate of SVAAULSH (Stavropol Military School). He is one of the few who, in the difficult 90s, retrained to fly on Airbuses since 2008, having 12 thousand flight hours, which testifies to his enormous experience. The second pilot also came from military aviation, being a veteran of the Chechen campaign. After retiring, Sergei Trukhachev retrained on the A321, having undergone training in the Czech Republic. I flew them for more than 2 years. The total flight time was 6 thousand hours. Both pilots were in good standing with their airline. Nemov was even called back from vacation prematurely to be sent on the infamous flight 9268.
Official version
Two weeks after the tragedy, the version of the terrorist attack was officially voiced by the head of the FSB during a meeting with the President of the Russian Federation. To support his words, he provided the following evidence:
- American satellites recorded a thermal flash over Sinai during the disaster, which indicates an explosion occurred on board the plane.
- The fuselage fragment has a hole with a diameter of about one meter. Its edges are curved outward. This indicates that the source of the explosion was inside.
- When decoding the recorder recording the negotiations, before the recording is interrupted, extraneous noise is heard, the nature of which can be attributed to a blast wave.
- The plane crash in Egypt caused great public outcry. After a while, they not only admitted responsibility for the terrorist attack, but also posted a photo of an improvised explosive device (IED) on the pages of Dabig magazine.
- Some of the victims had injuries indicating death from the consequences of the explosion (burns, tissue ruptures).
- Traces of explosives - TNT molecules - were found in fragments of shrapnel, luggage and on the bodies of the victims.
The power of the explosion was estimated at 1 kilogram. The estimated location of the IED is the tail of the aircraft. For the blast wave moved forward, but the fracture of the fuselage prevented its further advancement.
Plane crash in Egypt: who is to blame?
After the Russian version appeared, it became known that 17 employees were detained at the Egyptian airport. The main question was one: “How did the IED get on board the airliner?” The FSB began studying the biographies of 34 passengers (11 men and 23 women) who had TNT molecules on their bodies. But official Egypt soon stated that there was no evidence for a clear statement about a terrorist attack on board the plane. None of the employees were actually arrested. Russian authorities have announced a $50 million reward for any information about the terrorists.
Only in February 2016 did the Egyptian President officially acknowledge the terrorist attack. It was discovered that the bomb was made from plasticite, which is used to create military projectiles. It is powered by a clock mechanism. The plane crash in Egypt on October 31, 2015 showed that the airport security system does not meet international standards. The IED could have come on board the food supply company, through employees with access to the runway, or through carry-on luggage during baggage checks. The latest data is such that it was in the cabin in the immediate vicinity of place 31A. All these facts led to a ban on the sale of holiday tours in Egypt.
Flight passengers
EI-ETJ - the last digits of the Airbus number. According to them, the aviators called the board “Juliet” among themselves, affectionately “Dzhulka”. On that tragic morning, she broke up three aviation marriages and killed a young steward who replaced a colleague who had quit due to a bad dream. It also took the lives of 217 passengers, 25 of whom were children. Those killed in a plane crash in Egypt are entire families, dozens of destroyed love stories, babies who will never grow up. Ten-month-old Darina Gromova was on this flight with her parents. Her mother posted her photo on a social network before the flight. A girl stands at the airport facing the runway, and below is the signature: “Main Passenger.” This picture became a symbol of the tragic flight from which no one was able to return.
Almost all passengers are Russians, 4 people are citizens of Ukraine, 1 is from Belarus. The majority are residents of St. Petersburg, although there are also representatives of other regions: Pskov, Novgorod, Ulyanovsk. Those killed in the plane crash in Egypt are people of various professions. Even while relatives were busy identifying the bodies, caring people were forming a collective portrait of the passengers, collecting information about them bit by bit. A wonderful gallery was created, where many good words were found about everyone.
Almost a year later
On July 31, Moscow and St. Petersburg held a rally in memory of those killed over the Sinai. Nine months passed: many relatives received compensation, identified and buried their loved ones, but the pain did not subside. On August 5, 2016, a message was received that forty-five militants led by Abu Dua al-Ansari, through whose fault the plane crash occurred in Egypt, were killed during a military operation near El-Arish. I really want to believe that something like this will never happen again!
The largest plane crash in the history of Russian and Soviet aviation occurred on the morning of October 31 on the Sinai Peninsula. The Kogalymavia plane, flying from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, crashed 23 minutes after takeoff. All 224 people on board were killed.
The terrorist organization “Islamic State”, banned in Russia, twice claimed responsibility for the crash of A321. However, at first the Ministry of Transport called this information unreliable. Egyptian authorities also refused to acknowledge the terrorist attack.
For the first time, Western media began reporting that a terrorist attack could have occurred on board the A321 shortly after the plane crash. The version of the terrorist attack was considered “highly probable” by the US and British authorities, citing intelligence data. Bi-bi -si, citing its sources, reported that the bomb could have been carried on board the plane immediately before its departure. The Sunday Times even called it an explosion. According to the publication, he could be Abu Osama al-Masri, the leader of the local terrorist organization Sinai Province, which swore allegiance to the Islamic State.
A number of countries and airlines banned flights to Egypt three days after the plane crash, but Moscow made this decision only on November 6. First, the Kremlin banned flights to Egypt with the idea that the priority version of the A321 crash was a terrorist attack. However, later Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that the version of the attack was still .
On November 8, a participant in the investigation into the A321 crash told Reuters that investigators were 90% confident that the sound recorded by the flight recorder in the final seconds of the flight was . The next day, US intelligence announced that Russian officials, but so far Moscow has not named a single priority version.
Explosives with a capacity of up to 1 kg in TNT equivalent are more than enough to lead to a plane crash, Alexander Fridlyand, director of the Scientific Center for Economic Monitoring, Analysis and Forecasting of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise State Research Institute of Civil Aviation, told RBC. According to him, the design of the aircraft is a set of power elements and shells. If the tightness of these elements is broken, the plane literally bursts, since the pressure in the cabin of the airliner is the same as on the ground and discharged overboard. “That is, the plane explodes like a ball,” Friedland noted. In his opinion, the explosives could have been located in the rear of the plane, probably in the luggage compartment, since this part of the A321 landed separately from the rest of the wreckage.
ALL PHOTOS
On Tuesday it also became known that Russian intelligence services had announced a large reward for information about those involved in the terrorist attack on board the A321. “The Federal Security Service appeals to the Russian and international public for assistance in identifying the terrorists. A reward of $50 million will be paid for providing information that helps to apprehend the criminals,” the Russian FSB Public Relations Center said in a statement.
"We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them"
In response to Bortnikov’s statement, President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in the Kremlin promised to find and punish all the terrorists who carried out this terrorist attack. The head of state addressed the audience with a speech:
“This is not the first time that Russia is faced with barbaric terrorist crimes, most often without any apparent reasons, external or internal, as was the case with the explosion at the Volgograd station at the end of 2013. We have not forgotten anyone or anything.
The murder of our people in Sinai is among the bloodiest in terms of the number of crime victims. And we will not wipe away the tears from our souls and hearts. This will stay with us forever. But this will not stop us from finding and punishing the criminals.
We must do this without a statute of limitations, know them all by name. We will look for them wherever they are hiding. We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them.
At the same time, we must rely on people who share our moral and ethical values that underlie our policies, in this case, foreign and security policy, and the policy of combating terrorism.
Our air combat work in Syria must not only continue. It must be strengthened in such a way that criminals understand that retribution is inevitable.
I ask the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff to submit relevant proposals. I'll check how the work is going.
I ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation to appeal to all our partners. In the course of this work, including finding and punishing criminals, we count on all our friends.
We will act in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for the right of states to self-defense.
Anyone who tries to assist criminals should know that the consequences of attempts at such concealment will rest entirely on their shoulders.
I ask all our special services to focus on this work."
In the West there was virtually no doubt about the version of the terrorist attack
The Kogalymavia airline A321, flying from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, crashed on October 31 in the north of the Sinai Peninsula. There were 217 passengers and seven crew members on board, all of whom died.
Western officials, a couple of days after the disaster, said that, most likely, the crash was the result of a terrorist attack - the plane crashed due to the explosion of a bomb carried on board. At the same time, the Russian authorities, although they imposed a temporary ban on Russian aviation flights to Egypt, literally until recently stated that there was no key version of the disaster yet, and called for not making hasty conclusions.
It is noteworthy that Vladimir Putin, although he did not talk about the version of the terrorist attack, however, expressing condolences to the relatives of the victims on the fourth day after the disaster, assured that “no one will be able to intimidate Russia.” A few days later, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev directly announced that a terrorist attack could have occurred on board a Russian plane.
Putin, who on Monday morning spoke at a meeting at the G20 summit in Turkey with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi about the imminent completion of the investigation into the plane crash, had urged journalists the night before not to rush to conclusions about the causes of the disaster. “Yes, we know about all versions, all versions are being considered,” the head of state said evasively at a press conference following the G20 summit, emphasizing that “the final conclusion can be made after the examinations are carried out and completed.”
It was previously reported that washes and scrapings from fragments of the A321 were delivered to Moscow to test for explosive content. On Tuesday, a source familiar with the investigation told Interfax that traces of explosives on the wreckage were identified using spectral analysis.
Let us note that in the West in recent days there has been virtually no doubt about the version of the terrorist attack. So, the day before, a message published by the British authorities said that London plans to change its approach to aviation safety because of this plane crash. Moreover, the press release clearly stated that the cause of the crash was a terrorist attack, most likely organized by the Islamic State group (banned in the Russian Federation).
Until recently, Russian security officials did not give any comments regarding the crash of the A321. Last week, the Russian Presidential Administration explained the reasons for the strange silence of representatives of the Russian law enforcement agencies about versions of the disaster against the backdrop of numerous reports in the Western press. “Intelligence should not ring the bell. As a rule, messages are transmitted when intelligence has failed,” said the head of the Presidential Administration Sergei Ivanov.
ISIS militants said they staged an explosion on the A321
Since the crash, IS militants have repeatedly stated that it was they who organized the terrorist attack that resulted in the crash of the Russian airliner as revenge for the Russian bombing in Syria.
The press also named the specific name of the organizer, citing British intelligence data that the Egyptian preacher Abu Osama al-Masri, who calls himself “the emir of the Islamic State in the Sinai region,” was guilty of the attack. Previously, he posted an audio recording on the Internet confessing his involvement in the disaster.
The Kremlin insistently urged not to link the A321 crash with Russia’s military operation in Syria. “Some hypothetical thoughts on this matter are inappropriate. And then, these are completely different dimensions, completely different questions. There is no need to link this,” said Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov in early November, answering the question whether it could affect the progress of Russia's operation in Syria confirms this version of the cause of the disaster as a terrorist attack. After Putin imposed a ban on Russian airlines flying to Egypt, Peskov also said that the decision does not mean that the main version of the investigation about the causes of the A321 crash is a terrorist attack.
Nevertheless, now that the version of the terrorist attack has been officially confirmed, Putin directly linked retaliation against terrorists with the military operation in Syria, saying that the sorties of Russian aircraft in Syria, which, according to the Ministry of Defense, are bombing IS positions, will not only continue, but will also be intensified. Thus, although the president did not name IS militants as the culprits, he made it clear that they were involved in the terrorist attack.
A number of independent experts are considering as a priority the version of a terrorist attack on board a Tu-154 military aircraft, which crashed a few minutes after takeoff.
He took off from Sochi's Adler airport and was heading to Syrian Latakia. According to the latest data, there were 92 people in it, among whom were journalists, the Alexandrov Song and Dance Ensemble, and high-ranking military personnel. According to the Ministry of Defense, none of them survived. The plane was allegedly carrying secret documents. The artists were planning to perform in Aleppo, which was occupied by Syrian troops in December, an employee of the group told Meduza. This contradicts information in leading Russian media, according to which the concert was supposed to be held at the Khmeimim airbase.
The Kommersant newspaper cites the opinion of Air Force major, instructor pilot Andrei Krasnoperov, who has little doubt that the airliner exploded in the air. As the main arguments put forward in favor of this assumption, he names two facts that have been established to date: firstly, the scatter of debris is too large, reaching 15 km; secondly, the flight was interrupted too abruptly and quickly after takeoff.
Video taken by a surveillance camera allegedly during the Tu-154 crash in Sochi
“It’s too suspicious that a plane, after taking off while climbing, disappears from the radar screens,” he said, noting that a “sharp drop… happens when something abnormal happened, something exploded, which something fell off."
This disaster reminded him of the death of the civilian airliner A321 in Sharm el-Sheikh, where at first the Russian authorities also in every possible way refused to acknowledge the version of the terrorist attack and only later were forced to agree that there had been an explosion on board.
“The situation may be similar to the tragedy in Sharm el-Sheikh; there, too, very little time passed after takeoff,” was the opinion.
“The pilot could easily transmit the information, turn on the distress signal, but this did not happen. This means that something was so abnormal, abrupt in the seventh minute of the flight... I can’t blame the crew, but the equipment does not break down so abruptly,” the pilot continued.
The instructor has no doubt that under such conditions only a deliberately provoked explosion could unexpectedly interrupt the flight of the ship.
“...If the plane had fallen intact, then there wouldn’t have been such a scattering of fragments, believe me,” the expert said. “The plane fell apart, just fell apart, which means it exploded, which means that somewhere someone was given a suitcase, considering that it was a flight to Syria, and the musicians from the ensemble were flying, they could have brought something with these musical instruments, someone could have planted something. Believe me, such a scattering of fragments only happens when the plane is destroyed in the air, and that’s all. the liner just falls, it turns out to be an oil stain, and then parts float up. The plane, if it falls, dives into the water, simply disappears, they find him after some time. And then they even found a person who was already in the coastal zone, damaged by the debris. This suggests that the debris fell to the ground in a disorderly manner, which means it exploded in the air."
In turn, the Open Russia publication quotes the words of aviation expert Vadim Lukashevich, who also drew attention to the large area of dispersion of the elements of the airliner.
"...It is noted that the wreckage is scattered over an area of one and a half kilometers. And this is a lot, because this may be evidence that the plane began to collapse in the air... And if in the air, then this is a terrorist attack. Because it is impossible that if there is a piloting error the plane collapsed in the air. It needs to be disrupted, for example, into a tailspin, and this would be very difficult to do. But if this is a technical malfunction, then, anyway, there are no such malfunctions that lead to destruction in the air,” the specialist said. .
In a conversation with the BBC Russian Service, he confirmed that the version of a terrorist attack should not be ruled out.
“...The possibility of an explosion on board cannot be ruled out... If it turns out that the wreckage of the plane lies over a large area, this will mean that the destruction of the Tu-154 began in the air,” Lukashevich said, pointing out that this plane should be considered old and unusable cannot be used.
In a conversation with Novaya Gazeta, he provided a more expanded explanation of his position, which largely corresponds to Krasnoperov’s reasoning.
“When the Airbus was blown up over Sinai, the whole world knew that it was a terrorist attack,” explained Lukashevich. “All the intelligence agencies reported that we were the only ones playing the fool for two weeks. It’s just that if this is a terrorist attack, you need to understand that this is our answer for Aleppo... When the plane was blown up over Sinai, everyone understood this thing - this is Sharm el-Sheikh, a poor security system, radical groups. Today's context is the murder of our ambassador in Turkey by a state security officer. Today we suffered losses already in the Ministry of Defense... The most likely ones are a pilot error and a technical malfunction. But the fact is that in 7 minutes of flight the plane manages to gain a decent altitude. For that altitude, the debris found in completely different places is too much. This indicates that it began to collapse in the air. No technical malfunction can lead to it. destruction of an airplane in the air. An airplane is a fairly reliable thing. If destruction began to occur in the sky, it means that something extraordinary has already happened there... Why did the landing gear come off? The plane's landing gear could be torn off while it was landing, if the pilots did not have time to remove it. But, you see, seven minutes is a long time, the pilots could not help but remove the landing gear. If the landing gear was not retracted, they would report it. A flock of birds? Then two or three engines should go out at once. But at an altitude of two or three kilometers they have plenty of time to make a decision. A striking example is the “miracle on the Hudson,” the specialist concluded.
In turn, the previously mentioned instructor pilot Krasnoperov, in a conversation with Novaya Gazeta, again emphasized that the disaster reminds him of the tragedy over the Sinai Peninsula.
“It’s the same story: a plane disappears from radar, then it turns out that its tail has come off, and after a huge amount of time we are informed about a terrorist attack,” he recalled. “You see, for a pilot to press the distress signal button it takes a split second... But It’s empty here, there’s a loss of communication. Further, the fragments of the plane are scattered for 15 km. This means that it fell apart in the air. The plane is strong, even if it falls into the water, its wing may fall off, but it won’t fall apart. People. it just can’t be scattered over several kilometers (the correspondent’s passport was found several kilometers from the landing gear)... He landed in order to refuel... What appeared on the plane after this refueling? It’s not the same here as on civilian ones. After checking the documents, cars arrive and are loaded. additional things. It’s much easier to bring something in. The people are all relaxed, no one is thinking about safety at this moment.”
For his part, military expert Alexander Golts was also wary because “the Russian authorities immediately began to deny the version of the terrorist attack,” the BBC reports. At the same time, he admitted that Tu-154 aircraft are obsolete aircraft.
A similar opinion was expressed in a conversation with Komsomolskaya Pravda by Alexander Romanov, a former aircraft commander and flight safety specialist.
“Due to the fact that the wreckage is now scattered over a considerable distance, this suggests that the plane may have already fallen apart in the air,” he said. “And it is possible that it was a terrorist attack (the political situation is very difficult now). There is a possibility of talking about some kind of sabotage. Everyone probably guessed where the plane was flying, and they could have planted something in the luggage, somewhere else. That is, it seems to me that it is similar to the Egyptian case...”, the specialist noted. .
According to him, the key moment of the event was related to the refueling of the plane in Sochi.
“Most likely, service services arrived, there was some kind of water delivery, naturally, there were tankers, there were technical services. Because all the technical regulations had to go through, everything technical had to be carried out by the ground services. Therefore, quite a lot of people approached the plane,” - he suggested, explaining that at that moment a mine was probably planted in the luggage compartment.
At the same time, he explained that under other circumstances the crew would have had the opportunity to send a distress signal, which was not done in this case.
“In 7 minutes, the plane could climb about 3-4 thousand meters, and from there the crew had all the opportunities to convey, if there had not been some unexpected, sudden situation, when everything happened almost instantly, the crew was deprived of the opportunity to convey the difficulties that appeared on board. Therefore, most likely there was some kind of terrorist attack,” the expert concluded.
The Department of Information and Mass Communications of the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that the crashed Tu-154 plane only recently, in the fall of this year, underwent scheduled maintenance, and was flown by an experienced pilot, Interfax reports. For its part, a source in the emergency services also ruled out the version of pilot error and called the weather conditions in the area of the crash “favorable.”
“The version of pilot error is also unlikely, because they had extensive experience in flying aircraft of this type and significant flight hours. As for the weather conditions in the crash area, they were favorable for the flight,” the source said.
Thus, various officials collectively have effectively ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack. However, the authorities are in no hurry to designate this version even as one of the possible ones, but instead consider a technical malfunction as the cause of the plane’s crash.
However, Fontanka reports that security forces are working on a version of the terrorist attack. According to her, the FSB is checking all persons involved in servicing the Tu-154 aircraft. A source in the Ministry of Defense said that the Tu-154 served as a so-called “mail carrier”, transporting a large volume of military papers, which could include secret dispatches.
It should be noted that among the passengers of the crashed plane - in addition to the musicians - were high-ranking Russian military personnel, including Lieutenant General Valery Khalilov and the head of the military police of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant General Vladimir Ivanovsky. The surnames of the other dead servicemen have not yet been disclosed by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
It is known that on board the Tu-154 there was a film crew from the Zvezda and NTV channels, reporters from Channel One, as well as a former REN TV journalist.
The head of the Fair Aid charity foundation, Elizaveta Glinka, known as Doctor Lisa, who was flying to the Khmeimim airbase to take medicine to the Latakia University Hospital, also died in the crash.
According to Life, the artists of the Alexandrov Song and Dance Ensemble were prohibited from talking to the press. Three artists from different groups of the ensemble reported this to Life. Members of the musical group are informed by telephone that interviews are prohibited without prior approval from the administration.
The Russian Ministry of Defense Tu-154 plane disappeared from radar on Sunday morning two minutes after taking off from Sochi. The liner fell in the Black Sea near the Sochi coast. A criminal case has been opened regarding the crash of the Tu-154. The main version of the crash is a technical malfunction.
A search and rescue operation is currently underway in the area of the disaster. According to the latest official data from the Russian Ministry of Defense, rescuers found and raised the bodies of 12 dead to the surface.
