Because of Russia's entry into Syria with their armed forces it would make sense that ISIS sympathizers in the Sinai might try to shoot down a Russian Plane. But, if it is true expect this to be covered up by the Russians and even NATO and the Americans might try to deep six this story if this is what happened.
Questions swirl over Russian plane crash in Sinai that killed all 224 aboard
| CNN | - |
Sharm
el-Sheikh, Egypt (CNN) The remains of Russian tourists killed in a
passenger jet crash in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula are expected to start
arriving back in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Sunday as questions swirl
over what caused the disaster.
Questions swirl over Russian plane crash in Sinai that killed all 224 aboard
Story highlights
- Fuselage disintegrated in midair, Russian media quote aviation official as saying
- Egyptian official says there was nothing abnormal before plane dropped off radar
- Russian and Egyptian authorities dismiss apparent claim of responsibility from militants
Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt (CNN)The
remains of Russian tourists killed in a passenger jet crash in Egypt's
Sinai Peninsula are expected to start arriving back in St. Petersburg,
Russia, on Sunday as questions swirl over what caused the disaster.
All
224 people aboard Kogalymavia Flight 9268 died in the Saturday morning
crash that left debris strewn across a remote area of a region plagued
by a violent Islamic insurgency.
The
airliner broke into pieces in midair, Russia's state-run media quoted
an aviation official as saying, but there were no additional details.
"Disintegration
of the fuselage took place in the air, and the fragments are scattered
around a large area (about 20 square kilometers)," Viktor Sorochenko,
executive director of Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee, told
journalists, according to reports.
Footage
from the scene showed mangled wreckage and piles of belongings from the
plane spilled over a largely flat, barren landscape.
11 photos: Russian plane crashes in Egypt
Many
of the passengers on the Airbus A321-200 aircraft, which crashed en
route from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg,
were reported by Russian state media to be returning from vacation.
Russian officials said there were 25 children aboard the plane.
At
Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg, where the aircraft was supposed to
end its journey, mourners paid their respects to victims at a makeshift
memorial. People brought red or white carnations and stuffed toys. A
table held a dozen candles. Relatives who had waited desperately for
news of loved ones broke down in tears.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared Sunday a day of mourning.
'It suddenly disappeared'
It
remains unclear what caused Flight 9268 to suddenly drop off radar, in
clear weather after only 23 minutes in the air, and hurtle to the
ground.
Speaking to high-ranking army
officers in Cairo on Sunday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
asked them to observe a moment of silence before urging the public not
to jump to conclusions. Determining what happened will require a lengthy
investigation, he said.
"These are complicated matters that require advanced technologies and wide investigations that might go on for months," he said.
The
crash is most likely the result of a technical failure, Egyptian
Airports Co. chief Adel Al-Mahjoob told CNN Arabic on Saturday, although
he noted that the plane passed a routine check before it took off.
Russian
media outlets said that the pilot reported technical problems and
requested a landing at the nearest airport before the plane went
missing, but Egyptian authorities disputed that claim.
Air
traffic control recordings don't show any distress calls, Egyptian
Civil Aviation Minister Hossam Kamel said at a news conference.
"There was nothing abnormal before the plane crash," he said. "It suddenly disappeared from the radar."
'Little that can or should go wrong'
CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest said it was "unusual" for an aircraft to go down after around 20 minutes in the sky.
Quest: Airbus A320 the 'backbone' of European fleets 02:44
"At
this point, a plane is on autopilot. It's reaching its initial cruising
altitude, and there is little that can or should go wrong," he wrote in
an analysis.
Investigators
are likely to get a better understanding of what happened from the
aircraft's so-called black boxes -- the flight data recorder and cockpit
voice recorder -- which have been recovered and transported to Cairo
for analysis.
The data recorder stores a
vast array of information about the flight, such as air speed,
altitude, engine performance and wing positions. The voice recorder
captures sounds on the flight deck that can include conversations
between the pilots and warning noises from the aircraft.
Militants' claim of responsibility dismissed
The
Sinai Peninsula, where Flight 9268 crashed, is home to ISIS-affiliated
militants who are locked in a deadly conflict with Egyptian security
forces. They appeared to claim responsibility for bringing down the
Russian passenger jet in a statement posted online Saturday, but
officials in Egypt and Russia dismissed it.
Aviation expert: Major failure aboard aircraft 03:31
Mahjoob,
the airport official, said there was no evidence of a terrorist attack.
And Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said the claim that
terrorists brought down the plane by using an anti-aircraft missile
"cannot be considered reliable," according to the Russian state news
agency RIA Novosti.
The Egyptian
military said militants in Sinai have shoulder-fired anti-aircraft
weapons that only shoot as high as 14,000 feet, far short of the more
than 30,000 feet at which Flight 9268 was flying when it dropped off
radar.
To reach such an altitude would
require missiles using special launch pads and radar systems operated by
engineers, the military said.
It added
that many of the victims of the crash were found with their seatbelts
on, suggesting the pilot had asked them to buckle up because of a
problem with the aircraft.
Nonetheless,
Air France, the German air carrier Lufthansa and the UAE airlines
Etihad, Emirates, AirArabia and flydubai have decided to reroute
aircraft scheduled to fly over Sinai.
"We
will keep that measure in place as long as we are not sure of the
circumstances and the reasons of the Metrojet crash," Lufthansa
spokeswoman Bettina Rittberger said. Metrojet is the name by which the
Russian airline, Kogalymavia, is commonly known.
Etihad
said in a statement that it was "complying with instructions by the
Egyptian authorities to avoid certain areas of airspace over the Sinai
peninsula," which would affect only a handful of flights.
Russians promised broad role in investigation
Russian
emergency ministry officials were on the ground at the crash site in
northern Sinai on Sunday, Russian state media reported.
Egypt: No foul play suspected in Russian jet crash 02:40
Sisi,
the Egyptian President, has promised Putin to allow "the broadest
possible participation of Russian experts in the investigation,"
according to the Kremlin. Putin has also ordered Russian Prime Minister
Dmitry Medvedev to open an investigation into the crash, it said.
The
Egyptian government said Sunday that 163 bodies have so far been
transported to morgues and hospitals in Cairo while the search continues
for others at the site. Russian government aircraft were expected to
start transporting them to St. Petersburg.
The
Airbus A321-200 that crashed Saturday was built in 1997 and Metrojet
had been operating it since 2012, Airbus said in a statement. The
aircraft had clocked up around 56,000 flight hours over the course of
nearly 21,000 flights, it said.
There
were 217 passengers and seven crew members on board, most of them
believed to be Russian. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin tweeted
that four victims were Ukrainian citizens.
Sharm
el-Sheikh, where Flight 9268 began its journey, is a beach resort
dotted with palm trees at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The
plane crashed about 300 kilometers (185 miles) farther north, near a
town called Housna, according to Egyptian authorities.
No comments:
Post a Comment