2 Russian airlines crash

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
2 Russian airlines crash
10
Wed, 08-25-2004 - 12:27pm

Workers scour Russian crash scenes for clues
89 killed in two planes; investigators probe possible terrorism link


NBC News and news services

Updated: 12:03 p.m. ET Aug. 25, 2004



MOSCOW - Russian emergency workers searched heaps of twisted metal and tall grass Wednesday for clues about what caused two airliners to plunge to earth within minutes of each other, killing all 89 people aboard. Officials said one jet sent a hijack distress signal, raising fears terrorists had struck.


A Federal Security Service spokesman said Wednesday that initial studies of the wreckage have shown no evidence that a terrorist act was carried out aboard either plane.


However, the spokesman, Sergei Ignatchenko, said that explosives specialists were still working at the scene and that terrorism was still being considered a possible cause of the crashes. Investigators were still questioning airport, airline and security employees from the airport where the planes originated, he said.


Ignatchenko, speaking on state-run First Channel television, repeated that authorities believe the most likely cause of the crashes was a violation of air transport rules. He said investigators were checking the content of the fuel used in the planes and their technical condition.


Russian news agencies reported that the flight data recorders from the two planes had been found and taken to Moscow, and the FSB press service said their content could yield key clues to the cause of the crashes.


Planes disappear from radar screens
On Tuesday, a Sibir airlines Tu-154  jet, carrying 46 people, took off from Moscow's newly redeveloped Domodedovo airport at 9:35 p.m. (1:35 p.m. ET) and the other plane, a Tu-134  carrying 43 people, left 40 minutes later, state-run Rossiya television reported. The Tu-134 was headed to the southern city of Volgograd, while the other plane was flying to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, where President Vladimir Putin is vacationing.


The planes disappeared from radar screens about 11:00 p.m. (3 p.m. ET), and by early Wednesday morning, the wreckage of both had been found -- with no survivors. Domodedovo airport said in a statement that both planes "went through the standard procedure of preparation for flight ...(and) the procedures were carried out properly."



Uncertainty over the cause of the crashes came after Sibir said that it was notified that its jet had activated a hijack or seizure signal shortly before disappearing from radar screens.


Officials said the crew of the other plane gave no indication that anything was wrong, but witnesses on the ground reported hearing a series of explosions.


Interfax quoted an unnamed Russian aviation security expert as saying the fact that the two planes disappeared around the same time raised suspicions of terrorism.


Putin ordered an investigation by the FSB, and police officials said security was tightened at Russian airports and other transport hubs and public places. The FSB immediately dispatched experts to the wreckage to determine whether explosions proceeded the crashes, the Interfax news agency reported.


Linked to war in Chechnya?
Authorities have expressed concern that separatists in war-ravaged Chechnya could carry out attacks linked to this Sunday’s election to replace the region’s pro-Moscow president, who was killed by a bombing in May. Rebels have been blamed for a series of terrorist strikes that have claimed hundreds of lives in Russia in recent years.


Moderate Chechen separatists denied any role in the crashes.


“Our government has nothing to do with terrorist attacks. Our attacks only target the military. This is part of the Russian propaganda plan to besmirch the struggle of the Chechen people,” Farouq Tubulat, a spokesman for Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, told Al-Jazeera television.


Witnesses reported seeing an explosion before the first plane crashed about 125 miles south of Moscow, and suspicions of terrorist involvement were compounded by the reports that the Tu-154 airliner that went missing in southern Russia’s Rostov region issued a signal indicating the plane was being seized.


The Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies later quoted an unnamed law enforcement source as saying that the signal was an SOS and that no other signals were sent.


But Oleg Yermolov, deputy director of the Interstate Aviation Committee, said that it is impossible to judge what is behind the signal, which merely indicates “a dangerous situation onboard” and can be triggered during a hijacking or a potentially catastrophic technical problem.


Interfax reported that emergency workers spotted a fire in the Rostov region, where the Tu-154 went missing. But rainy weather hampered the search efforts and it took hours before any wreckage was found. A flight data recorder from the plane was recovered, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said, according to Interfax.


The regional Emergency Situations Ministry chief Viktor Shkareda told AP the plane apparently broke up in the air and that wreckage was spread over an area of some 25-30 miles. Body parts have also been found along with fragments of the plane, Interfax quoted federal Emergency Situations Ministry as saying. It said the parts were found near Gluboky, a village north of the regional capital Rostov-on-Don.


Blast seen onboard
Witnesses on the ground saw an explosion on board the second plane just before it crashed near Tula.


“Around 11 p.m., give or take five minutes, there was this strange noise in the sky, then this torn-up book fell onto our garage,” a local man told NTV television, holding up the book with its tattered pages.


In the Tula region, rescuers found fragments of the Tu-134 jet’s tail near the village of Buchalki. Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Marina Ryklina said later there were no survivors.


At about the same time that the Tu-134 crashed, the Tu-154 lost contact with flight controllers, Ryklina said. Interfax, citing Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee, said there were 44 passengers and an unknown number of crew abroad.


The Tu-154 took off from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport at 9:35 p.m. Tuesday and the other plane left 40 minutes later, state-run Rossiya television reported.


The Tu-154 belonged to the Russian airline Sibir, which said that the plane had been in service since 1982.


“We are considering an act of terror as one possibility, especially after we received an automatically generated telegram from the Sochi air control center that the plane had been hijacked," a Sibir spokesman told Reuters.


Quoting unnamed aviation officials and security experts, Russian news agencies also said authorities were not ruling out terrorism and suspicions were heightened by the fact that the two planes disappeared around the same time.



Washington sees incidents as 'suspicious'
In Washington, a U.S. official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Tuesday evening, said it was the understanding of American officials that the two Russian planes disappeared within four minutes of each other, which “in and of itself is suspicious.”


The U.S. Homeland Security Department was monitoring the situation but was not implementing any additional security measures in the United States, spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said.


ITAR-Tass reported that the authorities believe the Tu-134 fell from an altitude of 32,800 feet. It said the plane belonged to small regional airline Volga-Aviaexpress and was being piloted by the company’s director, and quoted dispatchers as saying there were 34 passengers and seven crew aboard. Ryklina put the numbers at 35 and eight — a total of 43.


Interfax quoted a Domodedovo airport spokesman as saying there were no foreigners on the passenger lists for either plane.


Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu told Russian television that flight recorders from both planes had been recovered.


NBC News' Tom Bonifield in Moscow, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.



URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5810127/

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Thu, 08-26-2004 - 8:43am

Today is the Russian national day of mourning for those killed in the crashes.

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Thu, 08-26-2004 - 10:39am


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Thu, 08-26-2004 - 10:56am

Update...although, I've noticed that it depends on the 'source' as to whether or not they believe it's terrorist related...


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Russia%20Plane%20Crash


Thursday, August 26, 2004 · Last updated 5:46 a.m. PT


Russian flight recorders reveal little


By JIM HEINTZ
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER


MOSCOW -- A top Russian official on Thursday said that flight recorders failed to provide reliable information about what brought down two jetliners nearly simultaneously, killing 89 people, but that terrorism remained a leading possibility.


Vladimir Yakovlev, the Russian president's envoy for the southern region, where one of the planes crashed, said despite the lack of information, the main theory about the catastrophe "all the same remains terrorism," the ITAR-Tass news agency said.


The apparent failure of the recorders to provide significant information could increase what appears to be rising suspicion among Russians that the crashes were terrorist acts.


The suspicions are bolstered by the fact the crashes took place just five days before a Kremlin-called election in warring Chechnya, whose separatist rebels have been blamed in a series of suicide bombings in recent years.


Yakovlev told First Channel television that the recorders "turned off immediately ... this is probably the main affirmation that something happened very fast."


Officials have said several possibilities were being investigated as the cause of Tuesday's crashes, including inferior fuel and human error. They had hoped the planes' data recorders would yield clues.


But Yakovlev said the recorders "had gone out of service already before the fall of the airliners," ITAR-Tass said.


Officials had expressed concern that militants might try to carry out attacks ahead of Sunday's vote.


In the absence of firm evidence, many Russian newspapers drew strong, if speculative, connections with terrorism.


"Russia now has a Sept. 11," the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta said in a headline.


A government commission appointed to investigate traveled Thursday to the crash site about 120 miles south of Moscow, where a Tu-134 with 43 people aboard went down. Workers ended their search work there, but continued to comb the wreckage of a Tu-154 that crashed in southern Russia, killing 46 passengers and crew.


Despite the lack of an official conclusion on the causes, the crashes nonetheless raised serious concerns about security at Russian airports. President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered the government to draft legislation to turn over responsibility for airport security to the Interior Ministry, which runs both the police and paramilitary forces, according to news reports.


Putin also designated Thursday as a national day of mourning.


The planes disappeared from radar around 11:00 p.m. local time Tuesday. The Tu-134 was headed to the southern city of Volgograd. The other plane was headed to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.


Both had taken off from the single terminal at Moscow's newly renovated Domodedovo airport, the Sibir airlines' Tu-154 around 9:35 p.m. and the smaller Tu-134 about 40 minutes later.


Sibir said it was notified that its jet had activated an emergency signal shortly before disappearing from radar screens. Officials said there were no indications of trouble with the other plane, but witnesses on the ground reported hearing a series of explosions.


Domodedovo airport said in a statement that both planes "went through the standard procedure of preparation for flight ... (and) the procedures were carried out properly."


But there was skepticism that technical failure or human error could bring down two planes at almost the same time hundreds of miles apart. "That's pretty far out there on the chance bar," said Bob Francis, former vice chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.


Jim Burin of the U.S.-based Flight Safety Foundation said that although bad fuel could cause an airplane's engines to fail, the problems likely would be noticed and reported by the crew well in advance as the engines began to labor or misfire.


He added that initial reports from the crash scenes indicated that one plane's wreckage was spread out more widely than would usually be the case in a crash that was not preceded by an explosion.


Rafi Ron, former head of security at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport and now a security consultant in Washington, D.C., said he was convinced it was terrorism. "The timing indicates that this is probably a coordinated attack," Ron said.


"There was probably something on board that led the pilots to push the distress signal or submit a verbal signal," Ron said. "In my assumption, that must have been the result of a terrorist on board."


Russian analyst Anatoly Tsyganok, head of the Center for Military Prognostication, told Echo of Moscow radio that "all the signs are that what happened here was either a forcible seizure of the aircraft or a hijack attempt."


Chechen rebels and their supporters have made bold and brutal attacks both within the small southern republic and in Moscow - including the 2002 seizure of hundreds of hostages at a Moscow theater. Officials also blame Chechens for suicide bombings, including one outside a hotel near Red Square and another at an outdoor rock concert in the capital last year.


If authorities connect the crashes to Chechen rebels, it would likely make the Kremlin even more adamant in its refusal to negotiate with the insurgents to end the war. But it also would underline Russia's inability to wipe out the rebels despite superior weaponry and manpower.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 08-27-2004 - 6:58am

Russia crashes: Traces of explosives found.


http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/08/27/russia.planecrash/index.html


Russia's top intelligence agency says it believes terrorism is behind the crash of at least one of the two Russian passenger jets that crashed within minutes of each other, after finding traces of explosives in the wreckage of a Siberia Airlines flight.


Investigators are still analyzing the wreckage of the Volga-Avia Express airliner, the first plane that went down Tuesday.


The Siberia Airlines Tupelov 154 had activated a hijack alert before it crashed, killing all 46 on board, Siberia Airlines said on its Web site. It was bound for the Black Sea resort of Sochi.


Both planes had departed from Moscow's Domodedovo Airport.


The Federal Security Service also said it had found data at the Siberia Airlines crash site that could enable them to identify suspects involved in the attack.


The FSB confirmed that a Chechen woman was on board the Siberia Airlines flight, and no friends or relatives had come forward. Her remains have not been found.


She is the only passenger on the flight that has not been inquired after.


According to Russian media reports quoting security sources and Chechnya's interior minister, a Chechen woman also boarded the first plane that crashed, a Volga-Avia Express Tupolev 134.


The Grozny resident, born in 1977, was the last passenger to board the Tu-134 and had purchased her ticket an hour before the flight departed.


No friends or relatives have inquired about her remains, which have also not been located, according to the media reports. She is also the only passenger on that flight that no one has claimed.


Through a spokesman, Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov has denied any involvement in the plane crashes.


The crashes took place ahead of a regional election in the rebellious southern territory of Chechnya, where Russian troops have battled separatist guerrillas for the past five years.


Chechen separatists have been blamed for numerous bombings and other attacks in Russia in recent years, including the seizure of hundreds of hostages at a Moscow theater that ended with more than 100 hostages dead.


Russian media report the tentative analysis of the Siberia Airlines wreckage shows the presence of hexogen, an element used by Chechens in past attacks.


The Volga-Avia Express Tupolev 134 was en route to Volgograd when disappeared from radar at 10:56 p.m. (2:56 p.m. ET) Tuesday. Its wreckage was found about 100 miles (160 km) south of Moscow near Tula, according to Russia's Emergency Ministry.


The Siberia Airlines Tu-154 was about 100 miles (160 km) from Rostov-on-Don when it dropped off radar screens at 10:59 p.m., the state news agency Novosti reported. Russian officials said the crash site spread over a 25 mile (40 km) radius.


The two crash sites were about 450 miles (725 km) apart.


Russian President Vladimir Putin had been vacation in Sochi when the planes crashed. He returned to Moscow on Wednesday.

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Fri, 08-27-2004 - 1:16pm
Let's see what Putin does now, that terrorist are at his doorstep.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 08-27-2004 - 2:41pm
They've been on his doorstep a long, long time.
cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Fri, 08-27-2004 - 3:23pm
Yes, but they have never done anything this drastic before.

Do you think there will be any sort of response from Russia?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 08-27-2004 - 5:49pm

That theatre attack was pretty far fetched. Then the rescuers did more damage than the terrorists.


The Russians have been attacking the heck out of them in Chechna. (s?)


I would hate to hazard a guess what Putkin will do.


I'm sure he'll get revenge, if we hear about it or not is the question.

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sat, 08-28-2004 - 10:29am

No surprise here.


update:

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 08-31-2004 - 3:30pm
Police: 8 killed in Moscow blast.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/08/31/russia.carblast/index.html


At least eight people were killed and five others wounded when at least one car exploded outside a Moscow subway station, police said.


An official with the Interior Ministry said there is a "high probability" it was a terrorist act.


The official said that two scenarios were under investigation -- that a female suicide bomber detonated the blast, or that a bomb had been placed under a car.


The blast occurred Tuesday at 8:10 p.m. local time (1610 GMT) outside the Rizhskaya subway station, near the city center.


A score of emergency and police vehicles rushed to the scene, and police cordoned off the area around the blackened car that apparently exploded, The Associated Press reported.


Police said the explosion shattered doors and windows in the station vestibule, Russian news agencies reported.


Alexei Borodin, 29, told AP that he heard "a very powerful bang. Something flew past my head, I don't know what it was."


"There were people lying in the square," he said.


The blast occurred a week after two Russian passenger planes crashed minutes apart, brought down by explosions believed brought on board by Chechen suicide bombers. (Full story)

cl-Libraone~

 


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