On Sunday, officials confirmed [4] that the Russian passenger jet which crashed in the Sinai Peninsula killing all 224 people on board “broke apart in the air.” Although we cannot of course be sure, that does seem to suggest that the plane exploded.
Obviously, getting to the bottom of what happened to the Airbus A321 as it was flying to St. Petersburg from Egypt has serious geopolitical consequences. As we noted yesterday, if there’s any evidence to corroborate the notion that the aircraft was “destroyed” by IS Sinai, then militants in Egypt will soon find themselves shooting at other Russian jets - only these jets will be shooting back.
On Monday, Kogalymavia (the airline operating the flight) is out insisting that neither pilot error or a problem with the plane itself could possibly have been responsible for the “accident.” The only explanation, according to the airline, is a “mechanical impact on the plane.” Here’s WSJ [5]:
Russia’s Kogalymavia said human and technical factors weren’t responsible for the crash, which killed all 224 people on board.
The Airbus A321 was flying to St. Petersburg, Russia, from the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh in Sinai, a popular destination for Russian tourists.
After climbing gradually to more than 33,000 feet, the jet dropped some 6,000 feet in about 22 seconds, according to preliminary radar data posted Saturday by a commercial website. In roughly 60 seconds, the data show the plane’s speed dropping to about 100 miles an hour, slower than the forward speed needed to continue safe flight. According to the data, which hasn’t been confirmed by investigators, the plane had been cruising at roughly 460 miles an hour.
(debris was scattered in an 8 kilometer radius)
Here’s more color from Sputnik [6] who notes that any concerns about the condition of the plane (as allegedly voiced by the co-pilot prior to the flight) were unfounded:
The crashed Russian airliner had passed all necessary tests when entering the Kogalymavia fleet; and the technical condition of the plane was good, the company's top manager said Monday. The aircraft's engines were inspected in Moscow on October 26; no problems were found. Moreover, there were no problems with the quality of fuel used by the Russian airliner.
"In regard to fatigued cracks it should be noted that work on its assessment of metal fatigue on airliners is done every five years. We also conducted such work very carefully on this plane and that was in March 2014," Kogalymavia flight director Alexander Smirnov said during a press conference in Moscow.
The tail part of the Airbus A321 plane had sustained damages in 2001, the airliner was fully repaired. The technical condition of the plane was normal, Kogalymavia officials said.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg examines [7] the possibility that an explosive device was smuggled onto the jet:
While the Islamic State’s Sinai affiliate claimed responsibility for shooting the plane down, Egyptian and Russian officials said those claims weren’t credible. Only the most sophisticated ground-based missiles can reach 31,000 feet (9,450 meters), the cruising altitude at which the Metrojet encountered problems and began to fall.
That doesn’t rule out a bomb like the one that detonated aboard Pan Am Flight 103 as it was carrying holiday travelers from London to New York on Dec. 21, 1988. A small explosive device smuggled aboard in checked luggage blew out the side of the Boeing Co. 747 and it came apart over Scotland, according to the U.K.’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch report.
So far, neither Egyptian nor Russian officials have said there’s any evidence of a bomb. Explosive devices cause telltale pitting on nearby metal and also leave chemical residue, according to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, so an examination of the wreckage should tell investigators whether or not that was the cause.
One area investigators will pay close attention is damage to the Metrojet A321 when its tail struck the runway while landing in Cairo in 2001. The plane was repaired and returned to service, according to Ascend Worldwide Ltd., a London-based company that gathers data for insurers.
There have been at least two similar accidents caused by improper repairs after tail damage.
But Russia’s aviation watchdog, Rosaviatsia, says it's premature to come to any conclusions:
"It is completely premature to speak about the reasons of this as there are not grounds. And I’d like to call on the aviation community to refrain from any premature conclusions."
And here’s the company explaining that a modern passenger plane doesn’t simply “disintegrate” in mid-air.
"Before the A321 began falling, it most likely had received considerable damage to its construction that would not allow it to fly. Obviously, due to this, when the catastrophic situation started to unfold, the crew completely lost control over the plane, which would explain why there were no attempts to communicate and report on the emergency situation on board," the airlines’ deputy general director of technical and production issues, Andrei Averianov, said at a press conference in Moscow.
External forces are the only possible reason of the deadly crash, Kogalymavia officials said Monday. Kogalymavia 7K9268 flight likely suffered substantial damages when it started to fall, officials said.
"A plane cannot break up in the air due to some sort of [system] failure. If we exclude any type of fantastic version, then theoretically a plane may break up because of large overloads. The Airbus 320 aircraft is a very reliable plane and has so-called protection in its control, which does not allow for the plane to become overloaded even if there is an error in piloting techniques. The only feasible explanation to the reason for the plane breaking up in mid-air would be a particular action, a mechanical or physical action on the aircraft. I’m not authorized to make any sort of conclusions, but a plane cannot simply disintegrate."
Right. Or, as we put it on Sunday, even as the "experts" claim that i) ISIS couldn't have shot the plane down, and ii) that the data seem to "rule out" sabotage, one can't help but note that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was brought down by a missile over Ukraine and furthermore, it's not clear why "some sort of control problem" isn't compatible with someone either hitting the aircraft with a projectile or else detonating an explosive on board. That is, when planes explode in mid-flight, it tends to lead to "control problems."
Still, offcials are hesitant to suggest that terrorism is indeed responsible. Here's a rather vague explanation of what might have happened from Former NTSB investigator Alan Diehl who spoke to CNN [8]:
Former NTSB investigator Alan Diehl told CNN he believes the "final destruction" of the plane could have been from "aerodynamic forces or some other type of G-forces."
And here's a bit more regarding reports that the co-pilot had reservations about the plane's condition:
The ex-wife of the plane's copilot, Sergei Trukhachev, said over the weekend that he had told his daughter he was concerned about the condition of the plane. "Our daughter had a telephone chat with him just before the flight," Natalya Trukhacheva told Russia's state-run NTV. "He complained before the flight that one could wish for better technical condition of the plane."
But a Kogalymavia said such reports were irresponsible and that there was no record of the pilot or crew making any complaints.
Executive Smirnov said that he had personally flown the plane in recent months and that it was "pristine."
The A321-200 was built in 1997, and Kogalymavia, which is also known as 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, the plane maker said.
So draw your own conclusions, but what does seem clear is that the plane did indeed explode which, unless you believe IS Sinai shot down a jet cruising at 31,000 feet, suggests that some manner of bomb was detonated on board. It's either that, or you go with Alan Diehl's "aerodynamic forces or some other type of G-forces," explanation.
Whatever the case, at least 130 bodies left Egypt on Sunday evening bound for St. Petersburg.
Remember, the Sinai Peninsula is well within the range of Russia's warplanes flying from Latakia:
[9]
