Sinai plane crash -- Terrorists responsible?

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The tragic crash of the Airbus A321-200 in the Sinai Peninsula, carrying 224 passengers, has been attributed to multiple potential causes, including mechanical failure and terrorism. ISIS's Sinai Province claimed responsibility; however, Russian and Egyptian authorities dispute this, citing the limitations of the terrorists' weaponry. Investigators are focusing on the aircraft's maintenance history, particularly a prior tail strike and potential structural integrity issues, as well as the possibility of an explosive device being planted on board. The investigation remains ongoing, with conflicting statements from various officials complicating the narrative.

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An airliner crashed in the Sinai peninsula in Egypt carrying 217 passengers (214 Russians and 3 Ukranians). All presumed dead.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34689870

What a tragedy! My thoughts go to their families.

ISIS affiliate in Egypt, the so-called Sinai Province, has claimed responsibility for shooting down the plane. Russian and Egyptian authorities say this is very unlikely as the shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles the terrorists known to have are not capable of reaching 30.000ft.

Lufthansa and Air France-KLM said they would avoid the route while the cause of the crash was investigated.
 
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The fact that the pilot was able to make a radio distress call bodes well for the odds that the black boxes will quickly tell us what happened.
 
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In prior reports there were mentioned ideas like pilot reporting technical problems but it is no longer claimed.

The altitude is a bit too high for average terrorist, they would rather need something like... BUK launcher or so. Also a one with such high tech stuff would rather try to score a hit against for example Israel or so. Or some western country.

My guess? I haven't seen anyone connecting the dots so far... but Russian tourist industry is right now in really awful shape (local people when become poorer as first area slash their holiday spending). I'd consider as quite likely desperate cost cuts on safety or keeping blind eye to some minor problems in order not to lose a contract. Let's wait and see.
 
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Crappy Russian airliners are practically a meme, so I wouldn't rule out spectacular mechanical failure either. It's getting rare, but it can still happen.
 
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Too early to tell what might have initiated the plane crash, but it apparently broke apart "in the air," a senior official with Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee said Sunday. If not an explosion, it would indicate a serious structural failure.

http://news.yahoo.com/russian-plane-broke-apart-air-russian-aviation-official-144118046.html

If not terrorists, it could potentially implicate a failure in maintenance/surveillance for fatigue and/or corrosion, particularly stress corrosion cracking.
 
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This made me think of the Alaska Airlines crash caused by a failed horizontal stabilizer control rod. When it failed completely, it was like getting a full nose down control input.
 
Official: Russian jet broke up at high altitude over Egypt
http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-official-says-doomed-russian-plane-good-shape-105628831.html#
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — The Russian jetliner that crashed shortly after takeoff from an Egyptian resort city broke up at high altitude, scattering fragments of wreckage over a wide area in the Sinai Peninsula, Russia's top aviation official said Sunday as search teams raced to recover the bodies of the 224 people who died.
I'm wondering, what broke apart initially? The tail, a wing, engine, . . . . ?

This was an Airbus A321-200. Lack of maintenance certainly could compromise structural integrity, or failure to secure a cargo door, among various possibilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Airlines_Flight_981
 
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russ_watters said:
This made me think of the Alaska Airlines crash caused by a failed horizontal stabilizer control rod. When it failed completely, it was like getting a full nose down control input.
That kind of failure doom but doesn't destroy the aircraft until impact. This breakup at high altitude had to be something entirely different. I can't think of a similar failure.
 
Astronuc said:
Official: Russian jet broke up at high altitude over Egypt
http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-official-says-doomed-russian-plane-good-shape-105628831.html#
I'm wondering, what broke apart initially? The tail, a wing, engine, . . . . ?

This was an Airbus A321-200. Lack of maintenance certainly could compromise structural integrity, or failure to secure a cargo door, among various possibilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Airlines_Flight_981
Even those disasters doomed or almost doomed the aircraft, but did not destroy it altitude.
 
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  • #12
  • #14
Investigators poring over wreckage of the Metrojet Airbus Group SE A321 in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula will be taking a close look at a 2001 repair to the plane’s tail because it is one of the few things known to cause the type of sudden midair breakup that occurred Saturday, said John Goglia, a former airline mechanic who served on the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.
. . . .
Part of the tail section on the Metrojet plane landed apart from other wreckage, indicating it broke off from the rest of the fuselage.

The plane’s tail had been properly repaired, Andrey Averyanov, deputy general director for engineering at Kogalymavia, which operates under the Metrojet brand, said at a briefing in Moscow Monday.

The plane, which was operated by another airline at the time, was repaired by Airbus in Toulouse, France, said Averyanov.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...suffered-prior-damage-linked-to-other-crashes

There have been conflicting comments from the Metrojet officials and the Russian government.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...c-experts-begin-identifying-passenger-remains
the deputy director of Metrojet, Viktor Yung, told reporters that he did not believe the crash was caused by technical or human error.

According to the Russian-funded RT, Yung said the airline crew was incapacitated by the time the plane began plummeting.

Aleksandr Smirnov, who supervises the fleet of planes, told RT: "The only possible explanation is a mechanical force acting on the aircraft. There is no combination of system failures that could have broken the plane apart in the air."
Clearly there have been accidents attributed to the catastrophic failure of the rear bulkhead.
 
  • #15
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  • #16
US and UK officials: it may have been a bomb
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34728901

"We have concluded that there is a significant possibility that the crash was caused by an explosive device on board the aircraft," UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told reporters after the government's crisis response committee met late on Wednesday.

He said Britain was suspending all flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh indefinitely.
An unnamed US official told the Associated Press news agency they had reached the "tentative conclusion", after intercepting communications, that an IS affiliate in the Sinai peninsula had planted an explosive device on the plane.

"A bomb is a highly possible scenario," another US official told the AFP news agency.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry called the UK response premature and unwarranted, telling the BBC that Egypt had taken "exceptional measures" to enhance security at Sharm el-Sheikh airport.
Mr Sisi, in a BBC interview on Tuesday, dismissed as "propaganda" claims that militants linked to IS brought down the aircraft.

The jury is still out.
 
  • #17
That would surprise me. I know it can't necessarily be said that terrorists are very rational, but I don't see how it would be in ISIS's best interest to draw Russia further into the war.
 
  • #18
russ_watters said:
That would surprise me. I know it can't necessarily be said that terrorists are very rational, but I don't see how it would be in ISIS's best interest to draw Russia further into the war.
I would also be very surprised if it turns out to be ISIS. One potential motive is to hit tourism in Egypt. I remember reading that Russians are the highest proportion of foreign tourists in Sinai. Another could be a response to their recent involvement in Syria, though that would backfire badly, but as you said they're not very rational. It could also be a simple matter of access to plant the bomb, i.e; if a passenger or a crew member was involved willingly then the flight choice would've been restricted.

I'm more surprised that this is possible at all. I would've thought by now security checks would make it very hard for someone to plant a bomb, in Sharm El-Sheikh of all places...
 
  • #19
HossamCFD said:
I'm more surprised that this is possible at all. I would've thought by now security checks would make it very hard for someone to plant a bomb, in Sharm El-Sheikh of all places...

Security checks are generally just to make the passengers feel safe. I've been to Egypt twice and can remember the airports and security. It looks like smoke and mirrors to me with around 100 ways to infiltrate staring you in the face. All it really takes is to turn someone working on the plane and then it's easy.
 
  • #20
Greg Bernhardt said:
Security checks are generally just to make the passengers feel safe. I've been to Egypt twice and can remember the airports and security. It looks like smoke and mirrors to me with around 100 ways to infiltrate staring you in the face. All it really takes is to turn someone working on the plane and then it's easy.
That's my experience of Cairo airport as well but I thought Sharm would've been different. I've never been there but I know for instance that Egyptians going there by land pass through many military checkpoints and it's not unlikely to be turned away in one of them.
 
  • #21
HossamCFD said:
US and UK officials: it may have been a bomb

At this point, can they say for certain it was a bomb? There are many things that could cause an explosion and bring down an air craft.

Forensics can distinguish between a bomb and, say, a SCUBA tank that was inadvertently loaded onto the plane. But wouldn't those scenarios look the same at this point?
 
  • #22
lisab said:
At this point, can they say for certain it was a bomb?
I don't think they can, and they do say that the investigation is still on going (the SCUBA tank scenario is quite interesting actually). The article doesn't really elaborate on new evidences apart from the interception of ISIS communication. But it's definitely a change to the initial reaction when the terrorist involvement was all but dismissed.
 
  • #23
A news report quoted someone saying that, if it were a bomb, the evidence would be quite prominent in the wreckage.

As for a scuba tank, I am skeptical if it is sufficient to cause the breakup of a plane. I could see it punching a hole, but not taking out structural components.

(Then again, a quick Google of 'exploding scuba tank' suggests otherwise... )
 
  • #24
lisab said:
At this point, can they say for certain it was a bomb?
They would look for residues and pieces of the container distributed radially with small pieces of shrapnel embedded in surrounding materials. They would also look for areas of the fuselage blown outward.

Could a device have been planted by someone servicing the aircraft?
 
  • #25
Astronuc said:
Could a device have been planted by someone servicing the aircraft?
They say the heat flash seen at the time of breakup was not consistent with a missile hit. Would it also rule out a bomb large enough to cause the destruction of the craft?
 
  • #26
DaveC426913 said:
They say the heat flash seen at the time of breakup was not consistent with a missile hit.
Where is the witness/evidence of a heat flash reported?
 
  • #27
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/03/africa/russian-plane-crash-egypt-sinai/

"A U.S. military satellite detected a midair heat flash from the Russian airliner before the plane crashed Saturday, a U.S. official told CNN.
Intelligence analysis has ruled out that the Russian commercial airplane was struck by a missile, -- including possibly a bomb"
 
  • #28
Astronuc said:
Where is the witness/evidence of a heat flash reported?
I read it in the same BBC article
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34728901
On Tuesday, US media reported that a military satellite had detected a "heat flash" over the Sinai at the time of the crash.

It said data was still being analysed and that although the flash could have been caused by a bomb, a fuel tank or engine explosion was also possible.
 
  • #29
US detects heat around doomed Russian jet just before crash
http://news.yahoo.com/first-10-bodies-egypt-plane-crash-identified-090430021.html
http://news.yahoo.com/latest-ireland-suspends-flights-sharm-el-sheikh-202927270.html

However - Russia, Egypt dismiss US, UK claims bomb brought down jet
http://news.yahoo.com/russia-egypt-dismiss-us-uk-111130364.html

I'm curious to know how far the tail section is located from rest of the fuselage and wings. Some images show a charred area that looks like the wings and fuselage, whereas the tail section has no charring. Could a bomb have been located in the rear (either galley or cargo hold/bay) where is would have blown off the tail section?
 
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  • #30
Some kind of explosion seems to be implicated, but 'explosion' doesn't necessarily equate to 'bomb'.
If it was bomb the forensic evidence should be able to reveal that fairly quickly without even needing to open the data recorders.
There would be chemical residues and also damage to the airframe, cargos, and to passengers bodies which are typical of an explosive device.
Earliest reports of the crash site said that none of this bomb characteristic damage was seen.
 

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