Russian airliner crash in Sinai

I’m a bit surprised the crash of the Kogalymavia/Metrojet airliner in the Sinai on Saturday does not have a topic here. :confused: I would have thought any of the following would have earned it a thread:
*crashes from that altitude are rare.
*ISIS is claiming responsibility.
*the airline is blaming “external influence” – of course, 'cuz then it’s not their fault. :dubious:
*224 people dead; that is, a full-sized jetliner rather than some 50-seat regional turboprop.

So I guess I’m starting the thread.

Not enough facts to go on, at least until CNN goes Full Malaysian on it. All we know is the plane broke up in midair, and spread wreckage across six miles.

The entire tail of the plane apparently hit the ground first (don’t know how they would know that). Some three miles before where the main body of the jet ended up.

The plane was involved in a tail strike previously, inspected and given the all clear.

Radar tracking.

To fall further upstream, it would have had to stop flying further upstream. The engines of an A321 are under the wings and would keep the forward section airborne, although out of control, for a brief period.

What isn’t clear is if the wreckage is in two places, or strewn all over the desert - IOW did it break up or blow up?

And it’s a shoestring airline, hadn’t met payroll for a month or two, and the captain allegedly told his wife he had misgivings about the plane’s condition. FWIW.

I’m waiting until they figure out if it was an accident or a bomb. Unlike the Malasian Airlines case (err… the one that disappeared) it seems like we should know that within a couple of days.

News: US military satellites detected a midair heat flash before the crash.

From my layman’s POV, that certainly sounds like a bomb. I can’t imagine how the tail falling off would cause a heat flash.

Rupturing fuel tank igniting. Tank could be ruptured through internal tank explosion, a la TWA 800, or through independent structural breakup. Once the fuel atomizes, almost any ignition source could be enough. (Sparking wiring, engine heat)

I read that some engine failures can also generate a smallish explosion-like thermal pulse.

sabotage…shot down

and

subterfuge!

Global cover up

Its a conspiracy

Take yer pick :p:D

While CNN did report that the analyst claimed a heat flash occurred before the crash, isn’t it more likely that the satellite was picking up the fire from the crash landing? The plane wasn’t very far into its flight from Sharm-al-Sheik to St. Petersburg; ergo, it was still largely full of fuel and would’ve made a heck of a fire.

I’m not sure that a military satellite, not specifically looking at the airplane, would pick up the IR signature from a bomb, missile strike, small SAM rocket motor, or anything like that. If it’s what replaced the DSP early warning satellites, it’s meant to catch the IR glare from an ICBM rocket motor plume. I.e., something much bigger than the energy release from even 20 pounds or so of explosives, and something more in line from what you’d see looking at a giant jet fuel and aluminum fire.

I’m not anyone who would know definitively, but it would surprise me to hear that a satellite could see something so small as a “heat flash” from a breakup of an aircraft tail at altitude.

As to what happened to the plane, I’m 50/50 as to whether the tail broke off due to the 15 year prior tail strike and stereotypically shitty Russian preventative maintenance—the airline had been bouncing paychecks to its workers earlier in the year—or whether the Muslim Brotherhood/Al Nusra Front got tired of being shot at by Russian bombers in Syria and decided a bomb in the rear cargo area was called for.

The difference between the two breakup scenarios is huge. it won’t take long for a competent investigative team to know whether it was structural failure or a bomb.

An interesting question is how trustworthy the process will be.

And even more, how trustworthy it will be believed by the public at large to be. Noting there are at least three publics with widely different attitudes to authorities, conspiracies, and to the politics of the various participants: the Russian public, the Mideast public, and the Western public.

The airplane was shoot down by USA because of Russian involvement in Syria on Assad side. A similar incident occurred in 1988 when USA shot down an Iranian passenger plane.

An interesting question. I suspect that the FTA would have been invited to the investigation if it was anyone other (well, almost anyone) than a Russian airliner. As it is, I do tend to find the results of the investigation suspect. If it was, for example, ISIL retaliation for Russian involvement in Syria, would Russia want that news made public? I think they would not.

Of course.
:rolleyes:

The problem with that theory is that the Russkies would nuke them.
Of course, they may not be politically aware enough to realize that.

Doesn’t the NTSB* get invited to participate in the investigation of crashes of foreign-owned airliners in other countries (that is, not in U.S. territory and not a U.S.-flagged aircraft) mainly when the aircraft is of U.S. manufacture?:confused: Because this was an Airbus.

*I presume you meant the National Transportation Safety Board and not the Federal Transit Administration. :slight_smile:

So, you are saying that time traveling Americans shot down an Iranian passenger plan in 1988 because of Russian involvement in Syria on Assad’s side? Whoa…you need to take the blue pill, dude. :eek:

:stuck_out_tongue:

I’m surprised the Israelis haven’t been blamed yet.

Airbus SAS is a division of Airbus Group SE that manufactures civil aircraft. It is based in Blagnac, France, a suburb of Toulouse, with production and manufacturing facilities mainly in France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. They are not manufactured in the U.S.A.

D’oh!

The Russians would not nuke them. A nuclear strike would bring the world together against the Russians.