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Updated 10.48
A SENIOR OFFICIAL at the Russian airline whose flight crashed in Sinai on Saturday, has insisted that a technical fault could not have caused the incident.
Alexander Smirnov, the deputy general director of Metrojet, said that no technical fault could have caused the Airbus A321-200 to break up in the air.
He told reporters that the cause of the crash “could only have been a mechanical impact on the plane”.
His comments come as an Irish team of aviation experts touched down in Egypt today to help with the investigation into the crash of a Russian airbus.
Kolavia Flight 7K9268 crashed on Saturday in the Sinai Peninsula. It was en route from Sharm el-Sheikh to Saint Petersburg.
All 224 people – including 17 children – on board were killed. There were 214 Russian and three Ukrainian passengers, and seven crew members.
The plane was registered in Ireland, flying with the registration number EI-ETJ.
The Department of Transport confirmed that following the acceptance of an offer of assistance to the Egyptian accident investigation authorities, the Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) will send a team to Cairo today.
The team will assist in the investigation and will be made up of an operations/pilot inspector and an engineering inspector from the AAIU, and a regulatory/operations adviser from the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA).
The plane had passed an AAI safety review earlier this year.
The team will fly out from Baldonnel using military transport provided by the Department of Defence and the Irish Air Corps.
It was reported yesterday that the plane disintegrated in the air. Fragments of debris are strewn over a large area.
The plane’s ‘black box’ flight recorder has been recovered and is being analysed.
A claim by Islamic State militants that it had ‘brought down’ the plane was dismissed by Russia’s transport minister.
Emirates, Lufthansa and Air France have announced that they will stop flying over Sinai for safety reasons until the cause of the crash is determined.
A second plane carrying victims of the crash is set to leave Egypt for Russia this evening. Relatives are preparing to identify the remains of their loved ones in Saint Petersburg, AFP reports.
So far, 140 bodies have been repatriated.
Family members have been providing DNA samples at a crisis centre set up close to Saint Petersburg Pulkovo airport, now the site of an impromptu memorial where people have brought flowers and cuddly toys to commemorate the victims.
- With reporting from © AFP, 2015
First published 8.42
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The personal stories are heartbreaking. Many shattered lives this morning. Shameful that the cause of the disaster is yet again becoming the subject of conflicting accounts and misleading comments.
Instant and sometimes inaccurate, misleading or contradictory reporting is what we get with social media and 24 hr news services. And there is always the speculation…..the media love that.
Crash not traffic. Edit button please journal.
Don’t worry air traffic investigators spend months on years investigating these things. The true cause will be found.
Russian plane drops from sky over Isis territory .Naive to think it couldn’t be a terrorist attack.
Since when did Egypt become ISIS territory?
Planes don’t just disintegrate at 31,000 feet, there’s more to this than we are being told.
I’m pretty sure that’s why investigators are being sent to the area…
@Wang King,
Google China Airlines 611 and Japan Air Lines 123.
Both those accidents involved ageing 747s and outdated maintenance procedures – things have moved on a bit since then.
That’s not to say its impossible, but its far less likely nowadays compared to repairs carried out 30 years ago.
The thing is, for the aircraft to break up mid-air due to malicious attack it would need to be a powerful weapon to do so. Either a large explosive placed on-board (unlikely as all occupants were either Russian or Ukrainian) or a very powerful SAM system (which would be impossible to hide in the Sinai) would be needed.
The type of weapons readily available to ISIS are more short-range IR or Heat guided weapons which would target the engines and cause the aircraft to drop out of the sky, not the type of sudden and violent crash we’ve seen here.
As much as it seems unlikely that it was a mechanical fault, malicious attack is looking even less likely.
Avina they were due to ageing aircraft or outdated maintenance procedures, both those 747′s suffered a tail strike that wasn’t repaired to manufacturers standards even though tge were wrote up and documented that they were, the companies cut corners. The poor repairs cause metal fatigue over the years and neither airlines maintenance spotted it, thats why they crashed, Virgin were still flying the 747-200 up until a few years ago and there are still cargo 742′s flying, perfectly fine aircraft once its maintained correctly
Jason its not impossible that an explosive device may have been placed in the hold by someone with security clearance eg. rogue baggage handler.
All speculation at the moment though.
jason you need to stop pretending you know what you’re talking about and wait for the full report.
I was reading this morning that the plane was involved in a runway collision in 2001 or 2002. The article had an aviation expert saying that kind of damage can come back over time.
I heard that it was a break in the fallangie.
@Jason. Commercial Planes have been hit before from hand held launchers. MANPADS I believe.
Man-portable air defense systems
@ jason
From the pictures I’ve seen it was not a particulrly high energy impact, just look at the debris field for the germanwings crash earlier tis year. That been said it doesn’t resemble the malaysian one either.
To rule anything in or out yeat at this satge from our keyboards is only speculation.
Alos comments like the one this article discusses have to be taken into context of whos issues them. Of course the airline is going to try and blame external factors.
Lets just wait for accurate reports from investigators.
@ Boeing lover,
I don’t know about the China airlines crash. But JAL123 was certianly not repaired to manufacturers standards although boeing did the repair on the bulkhead.
To be fair, Germanwings was flown directly into a mountain at cruising speed – totally different to a mid-air breakup.
Matty, the indications are that the debris field was quite large actually. Reuters reported that the debris was spread over a range of 20 square kilometres with the nose and tail about 5 kilometres apart. While not quite as big as the 50 square kilometre debris field of MH17, it’s much smaller than the 2 square kilometre debris field of Germanwings Flight 9525 which could indicate a mid-air breakup akin to MH17 rather than a direct impact like the Germanwings crash.
Niall, as I said the matter in which this aircraft likely broke up is inconsistent with a MANPADs as they would impact the engines rather than the fuselage. The aircraft was also flying at an altitude of 31,000 feet when it began it’s sharp descent, much higher than the maximum ceiling of any MANPADs.
It’s too early to say for certain what it was, however I agree with the Russians in concluding that a shoot-down incident by ISIS like they claim is highly unlikely. An on-board explosion or technical malfunction looks like the most likely cause at this moment.
The spread of the field is normally related to the altitude of break up, the average size of the debris is related to the energy or violence of the impact.
There is some large pieces relatively intact here, which would conflict with your “not the type of sudden and violent crash we’ve seen here.” statement.
Again until more real facts are established, everything is speculation. I have seen no evidence yet which would eliminate anyof the possible causes except CFIT.
Matty, by it’s very definition a high altitude break up rules out MANPAD systems or anything else which isn’t radar-guided. It was the exact same discussion around MH17. A weapon which seeks IR or heat signatures will hit the engines of an aircraft, causing an aircraft with externally mounted engines to lose power and fall relatively intact to the ground.
The only thing I’m saying is that a shoot-down by ISIS like some are claiming is practically impossible given the current evidence.
While I agree it’s highly unlikely, it can’t yet be ruled out.
Thje investigators have to approach this with the attitude that anything and everything, however unlikely to be a contributing factor must be properly examined.
Incidently for wan kings conspiracy theory angle, the IAA will be part of this investigation as the aircraft was on the irish register.
Wang…it can happen and has happened..it would to based on maintaiing the aircraft properly..Loss of control could cause the aircraft to fall into a rapid descent which would create stress on the fuselage and the aircraft woukd break up.
On a Hawai Airlines flight many years ago half the roof came off in mid air..somehow they landed. If a rudder breaks off or an aileron the plane could spin out of control causing stress on the cabin/fuselage.. Problem is.. None of us know what happened.
RIP to all the victims.
I think the only logical explanation at this early stage points towards baggage handlers.
You should contact the IAA with your findings as they will be on investigation team.
AAIU is separate from the IAA but no need to contract them. Gather wild theories from the Journal is the 1st part of any air accident investigation
Both AAIU and IAA will be involved
The Isis-linked group that claimed to have downed a Russian plane over the Sinai peninsula has surface-to-air missiles smuggled from Libya, but nothing powerful enough to hit a plane at cruising altitude, experts say. The jihadi group, which calls itself Sinai Province, proved it posed a serious threat to low-flying aircraft when it brought down a military helicopter flying low over the area last year, and they could pose a serious threat to civilian airliners taking off and landing at the region’s airports.
However, the Russian plane that came down with the loss of all lives on board this weekend started experiencing problems at a far greater height.
Next to impossible for an aircraft to break up in the air without been hit by something or some form of explosion.
Paul, it’s far from impossible actually. It’s especially liable to happen after inadequate repairs from previous collisions give way as was the case with Japan Air Flight 123. Seeing as the aircraft suffered heavy damage already back in 2001 that could be the cause if the repairs were not conducted properly or became compromised later on.
That Japan flight didn’t not break up mid air and spend 30 minute flying before crash after cabin pressure explosion.
So far this has all hall marks of MH17 how how it broke up and dropped out of the sky.
Jason from what I understand this aircraft was involved in a tail strike this occurs on lift off when aircraft lifts at too high of angle and tail scraps the runway because of the extra length of the A321 this sometimes occurred but would be fully repaired and full structural inspection would have been carried out so extremely unlikely to have any bearing on this tragedy
As there is no immediately obvious reason for this disaster I would wait for some more info before passing comment on one cause or another. Just because ISIS claimed to have shot it down and the Russians automatically claimed a systems fault doesn’t achieve anything. Let those inspectors with no reason to cover up anything (the Irish aviation people), have a look at the remains of the aircraft and they will be able to give an unbiased report about what they believe happened.
Reported external problem caused the plane to break up, i bet IS were 100% accurate with the statement they made over the weekend and Puton will not like to admit this to people in Russia but then again I think IS days are number if it is correct as Russia will make sure they pay.
Do you know what sort of equipment it takes to hit an aircraft flying at an altitude of over 30,000 feet? Certainly not the sort of kit you’d find in the hands of Jihad John especially well within the borders of Egypt. The Egyptian military are the only ones in that area who could field and operate a weapons system with the range and power to intercept a civilian aircraft at cruising altitude.
Don’t rule out Egypt, they were quick to say external object didn’t cause it at the weekend.
I have no idea what it would take but I would put money on it been short down by something.
It certainly wasn’t ISIS who did this.
Well that’s cleared that up.
They are in parts of Egypt.
Anybody else find it strange that they’ve recovered and repatriated over 140 bodies already? Barely 48 hrs after the crash?
That sort of response is what is possible when the crash zone isn’t located in a war zone and occupied by hostile rebels who forbid access to the site.
No, they found the place very soon after the accident, they are hardly going to leave them out there in the heat anyway.
Sorry Jason but in who’s opinion are ethnic minorities considered ‘hostile’?
Where did I mention anything about ethnic minorities? Are you going to deny that the rebels repeatedly blocked access to the site and were hostile to foreign reporters and investigators initially?
Ah, the fake Mick Jordan account is back. I actually assumed they banned this childish rubbish.
True Jason. I wonder who’s account they will try using next? I must say very remiss of the Journal. I made several requests to have it removed.
No problem with that one Jason, Yes they did block access to the crash site but only after the Ukrainian side stopped mortar bombing separatist forces.
Sure the posts where I’ve been repeatedly accused of being a racist or the posts insulting my family and friends remain on the site as well Mick. The Journal staff don’t seem to pay much attention.
In fairness Martin, the mortar strikes were in completely different areas to the crash site. The rebels used the bodies of innocent people as leverage to ease the pressure on their forces elsewhere.
Perhaps you’re right but these issues over human lives go way beyond military expediency. To me, the rights and wrongs of all human conflict just get subverted in political power struggles, I think?
Flight 7K9268 was an Irish ‘name plate’ company registered aircraft owned by Wilmington Trust SP, an American company, currently facing FBI fraud charges. The plot thickens….
No really as the IAA wouldn’t allow them get away with an aircraft issues.
All Alitalia planes are Irish registered, and the maintainance here in Ireland is world class. Regardless of the customer, so what’s your point ?
You mean ‘covering their own arses’ in such events? A few years back in July 1999, an Aer Corps helicopter crashed in Tramore, Co. Wexford. killing the entire crew of 4 on board. Not once did the media raise any questions about the ‘bogus’ company involved in the supply of spare parts to the Aer Corps during that investigation?
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