Two Russian Planes crash, disappear

Talon Karrde · Post by **Talon Karrde** » 2004-08-24 07:30pm

MOSCOW — A Russian airliner crashed south of Moscow (search), and another passenger jet went missing about the same time after both took off from Moscow, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Tuesday. There was no word on survivors.

Authorities were not ruling out terrorism, the agency said.

A Tu-134 airliner (search) that apparently had 42 people aboard crashed in the Tula region, 125 miles south of Moscow, at about 10:56 p.m. Monday, ITAR-Tass reported, citing the Emergency Situations Ministry (search).

A Tu-154 with 44 people aboard went missing about the same time near Rostov-on-Don, about 600 miles south of Moscow, but authorities had not found the wreckage, ITAR-Tass said.

Earlier, however, the agency said emergency officials reported that the second plane crashed about three minutes after the first one.

Quoting an unnamed air traffic official in Moscow, where both planes originated, ITAR-Tass said authorities were not ruling out terrorism. The agency also reported that witnesses said they saw an explosion before the Tula region crash.

The plane that crashed near Tula was headed to the southern city of Vologograd, while the plane that disappeared was flying to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, where President Vladimir Putin is vacationing, ITAR-Tass reported.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-08-25 12:59am

Update: one of the planes activated a hijack alarm. Some are suspecting Chechnyan militants.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3596354.stm

Double air disaster hits Russia

Two planes have crashed in Russia within minutes of each other after flying out of Moscow.

All passengers and crew, more than 40 people, on the first plane died, after it went down south of the capital.

A second plane with at least 44 passengers on board went out of contact near Rostov-on-Don after activating an alarm indicating it had been hijacked.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the state security services, the FSB, to launch an investigation.

FSB investigations are normally held only when an accident occurs in suspicious circumstances, a security source told Reuters news agency.

Security has been tightened at Russian airports and the authorities say they are not ruling out a terrorist attack as a cause for the crash.

It is not yet known whether there are any survivors from the second crash.

Explosion reported

Both the planes had flown out of Moscow's Domodedovo airport within hours of each other and got into trouble almost simultaneously at about 2300 local time (1900GMT).

"The fact that both planes took off from one airport and disappeared from radars around the same time can show it was a planned action," said one aviation source quoted by Interfax news agency.

The first plane, belonging to the small Volga-Aviaexpress airline, crashed near the village of Buchalki, about 180km (110miles) south of Moscow, while en route for Volgograd.

The company said that all necessary security checks had been completed, and it was being piloted by the Volga-Aviaexpress director, Yury Baichkin.

There were reports from eyewitnesses that the aircraft exploded in the air before it crashed.

Air traffic controllers reportedly said no distress signals were received from the crew before the crash.

'Very strange'

The second plane, a Tu-154 flying from Moscow to the Black Sea resort of Sochi, vanished when it was expected to be 140 km (90 miles) from the southern city of Rostov-on-Don.

It sent out a signal indicating that it had been hijacked shortly before disappearing from radar screens.

The plane apparently broke up in the air and wreckage was spread over an area of 50km (30 miles), a regional official told the Associated Press news agency.

Russian air company Sibir has said it owned the plane.

Aviation expert David Learmount told the BBC it was "very, very strange indeed" to have "two unconnected safety accidents in the same country on the same day".

President Putin is currently on holiday in Sochi.

There are fears the two aircraft may have fallen victim to an attack by militants linked to a bloody uprising in the southern republic of Chechnya, which is due to elect a new president in a few days' time.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2004-08-25 08:35pm

My completely unfounded gut-feeling: Some Chechens wanted to pull a 9/11, the passengers were like "Bullshit, we've seen how that goes! Let's roll-ski!" and attacked, and the planes went down.

Talon Karrde · Post by **Talon Karrde** » 2004-08-25 09:15pm

GrandAdmiralPrawn wrote:My completely unfounded gut-feeling: Some Chechens wanted to pull a 9/11, the passengers were like "Bullshit, we've seen how that goes! Let's roll-ski!" and attacked, and the planes went down.

My thoughts exactly.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-08-25 09:50pm

Or they got shot down by a SAM regiment

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-08-25 11:32pm

MKSheppard wrote:Or they got shot down by a SAM regiment

Or a PVO fighter training in far too small a target range for that matter. From the looks of ACIG both are a common thing in Russian skies.

Post by **Edi** » 2004-08-26 03:20am

My newspaper this morning said that both planes' black boxes have been found and that while terrorism is still a possibility, the FSB has released a statement that technical failures are more probable cause of the crashes.

Edi

BoredShirtless · Post by **BoredShirtless** » 2004-08-26 04:31am

Weren't there 2 planes which went down? What's the probability of a technical failure on 2 planes, minutes apart....

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-08-26 04:51am

GrandAdmiralPrawn wrote:My completely unfounded gut-feeling: Some Chechens wanted to pull a 9/11, the passengers were like "Bullshit, we've seen how that goes! Let's roll-ski!" and attacked, and the planes went down.

Or maybe they simply planned to blow up the planes while they were airborne: Remember that eywitnesses reported that one of the planes exploded in the air before it crashed.

BoredShirtless wrote:What's the probability of a technical failure on 2 planes, minutes apart....

Very, very low...

Post by **Edi** » 2004-08-26 04:58am

BoredShirtless wrote:Weren't there 2 planes which went down? What's the probability of a technical failure on 2 planes, minutes apart....

Several possible causes could be: Shitty maintenance, bad fuel, pilot error, just for starters, and a big run of bad luck in that both accidents happened on the same day. Stranger things have happened.

However, even though the FSB is saying they're investigating this as violations of civil air traffic regulations, terrorism is by no means ruled out. Given Chechnyan accomplishments during the past year (assassinating Kadyrov and the rampage in Ingushetia being the most prominent ones) and the new Chechnyan elections coming up, if this turns out to be a terrorist strike, it's going to make Putin and his administration look like fucking incompetents. Therefore, the reason for the crashes cannot be terrorism. (officialy anyway).

Take your pick. So far, I'm undecided and waiting to see what turns up. I'm certainly not going to take anything that the Russian government says at face value.

Edi

Post by **Broomstick** » 2004-08-26 05:36am

In a way, a mid-air collision can be described as two pilots in two different airplanes fucking up simultaneously.

Likewise, although the odds are against it, it is POSSIBLE for two airplanes to crash nearly simultaneously without delibrate terrorist action. Unlikely, but not impossible. Odds a million to one? Well, OK, but after a century of flight and thousands upon thousands of airplanes that "one in a million" chance has had lots of "chances" in which to occur.

In a typical lottery game the odds of winning are much less than one in a million ... yet people still win the lottery, don't they?

Yes, we HAVE to consider terrorism... but it doesn't have to be an on-board attack, or a bomb. It could have been sabotage back at the airport.

Or it could just be really sloppy maintenance and incompetance.

I, for one, am glad that this is actually being investigated instead of the Russians going off half-cocked.

BoredShirtless · Post by **BoredShirtless** » 2004-08-26 06:29am

Broomstick wrote:In a way, a mid-air collision can be described as two pilots in two different airplanes fucking up simultaneously.

But in a more accurate way, a mid-air collision can be described as two pilots in two different airplanes interacting with each other in a way which causes a collision or causes the plane/s to take evasive action to avoid a collision.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-08-27 03:21am

GrandAdmiralPrawn wrote:My completely unfounded gut-feeling: Some Chechens wanted to pull a 9/11, the passengers were like "Bullshit, we've seen how that goes! Let's roll-ski!" and attacked, and the planes went down.

I was thinking the same thing. After the incidents of September 11 passengers would probobly take the risk of confronting the hijackers.

Dargos · Post by **Dargos** » 2004-08-27 07:15am

Now they are saying that they have found explosives. CNN REPORTS