RUSSIAN AIRLINER LATEST – AT 8:44 A.M. ET: We stress that this is informed speculation. A sophisticated investigation is just starting. From the Jerusalem Post:
US officials ruled out Monday the possibility that a surface-to-air missile brought down a Russian commercial airline in Egypt's Sinai on Saturday, killing all 224 passengers on board, according to a report by NBC News.
Officials said that satellite imagery identified a heat flash at the point where the aircraft crashed, leading analysts to believe that an in-flight explosion, rather than external tampering, may have brought down the the plane.
"The speculation that this plane was brought down by a missile is off the table," an official told NBC. Yet the possibility that the explosion was fueled by an on-board terror attack has not been ruled out.
The Russian Airbus A-321, operated by the airline Kogalymavia with registration number KGL-9268, was flying from the Sinai Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg in Russia Saturday when it went down in a desolate mountainous area of central Sinai soon after daybreak.
It took off at 5:51 a.m. Cairo time and disappeared from radar screens 23 minutes later, Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry said in a statement.
The plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet when it vanished from radar screens. It was completely destroyed and all those on board died.
COMMENT: We're watching this carefully, and also watching for a cover-up. The United States has not been invited to join the investigation yet, even though the plane's engines are American-made. It is expected that we will soon be asked to join.
There have, of course, been bombs placed aboard airliners. PanAm 103 was brought down by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, with a loss of 243 passengers and crew. Eventually, Libyan operatives were charged with the crime.
By contrast, TWA flight 800 went down off Long Island in 1996, only 12 minutes after taking off from Kennedy International Airport, with a loss of 230. The official NTSB report, which some have disputed, attributed the tragedy to an explosion in a fuel tank.
November 3, 2015 |