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An explosion on board is the most likely cause of the A321 crash, Stratfor experts say

In their opinion, explosive device carried in hand luggage

Experts from the private American intelligence and analytical company Stratfor consider the most likely cause of the plane crash over Egypt to be the carrying of an explosive device on board the Airbus A321. This is stated in the organization's published report.

"Although we cannot completely rule out the possibility of an aircraft failure, such an explanation would be unusual given the circumstances of the crash," the report's authors said. According to them, most plane crashes that occur due to failure of aircraft equipment occur during takeoff and landing, when the mechanical stress on board increases. “An airplane rarely breaks down while flying at altitude,” experts note.

The report also states that in the event of an equipment failure, the pilots of the airliner would most likely have been able to maneuver, and the plane would have flown to the ground without any catastrophic consequences.

In addition, analysts consider it unlikely that the plane was shot down by Islamic State militants (a group banned in the Russian Federation) from the Sinai Peninsula. “Although militants in the area were able to use MANPADS to shoot down an Egyptian helicopter and fire rockets at an Israeli aircraft, Flight 9268 was outside the weapon's range,” the report said.

“Given the improbability of alternative scenarios, it appears that the most likely explanation for the plane crash is the presence of an explosive device on board,” the report’s authors conclude. In their opinion, the explosive device was carried in hand luggage.

Earlier, CBS News reported that an American satellite recorded in the infrared spectrum above Sinai Peninsula at the time of the crash of the Russian A321 in Egypt.

On the morning of October 31, a Russian passenger plane Airbus A321 of Kogalymavia airlines crashed over the Sinai Peninsula during a flight from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. All 224 people on board the plane were killed. On Saturday, the A321 flight recorders were found at the crash site, and on Sunday, experts in Egypt began deciphering them. The IAC reported that the airliner collapsed in the air.

Late in the evening in the Kremlin, the President arranged a meeting with the participation of the ministers of defense and foreign affairs, the chief of the General Staff, the directors of the FSB and the Foreign Intelligence Service. The results of the investigation into the plane crash in Egypt were reported. The head of the FSB confirmed: it was a terrorist attack. On board Russian plane the bomb went off.

“Investigations were carried out into the personal belongings of the luggage and parts of the plane that crashed in Egypt on the 31st. As a result of the examinations, traces of foreign-made explosives were identified on all the items that I mentioned. According to our experts, a homemade device exploded on board the aircraft during the flight "An explosive device with a power of up to one kilogram of TNT. As a result, the plane, so to speak, fell apart in the air. This explains the large scatter of parts of the plane's fuselage at such a distance. We can definitely say that this is a terrorist act," said the head of the FSB of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bortnikov.

“This is not the first time Russia has faced barbaric terrorist crimes. Most often, without any apparent reasons, external or internal. Just as it happened with the explosion at the Volgograd station at the end of 2013. We have not forgotten anyone or anything. The murder of our people in Sinai in among the bloodiest in terms of the number of crime victims. And we will not wipe away the tears from our soul and heart. This will remain with us forever. But this will not stop us from finding and punishing the criminals. We must do this without a statute of limitations, know them all by name. We We will look for them wherever they are hiding, we will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them," said Vladimir Putin. "At the same time, we must rely on people who share our moral and ethical values ​​that underlie our policy, in "In this case, foreign policy and security policy, counter-terrorism policy. Our work, the combat work of aviation in Syria must not only be continued, it must be strengthened in such a way that the criminals understand that retribution is inevitable."

The President asked the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff to submit relevant proposals and said that he would check how the work was progressing.

"I ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Russian Federation contact all our partners. In the course of this work, including finding and punishing criminals, we count on all our friends. We will act in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for the right of states to self-defense. Anyone who tries to assist criminals should know that the consequences of attempts at such concealment will rest entirely on their shoulders. I ask all our special services to focus on this work,” the President said.

The Russian FSB is already taking measures to search for those involved in the terrorist attack on board the Airbus A-321 and is announcing a reward of 50 million dollars for information that will help apprehend the criminals.

The Kogalymavia plane crashed on the Sinai Peninsula on October 31. 217 passengers were returning home to St. Petersburg from the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. All of them, as well as the crew of seven people, were killed.

According to experts, the reasons for the destruction of the passenger Airbus aircraft The A321 of Kogalymavia airlines in the air could have been damaged by a shock wave from the explosion of a small bomb, torn off engine parts or fatigue cracks that appeared in the supporting structures, the Kommersant newspaper writes on Monday, November 2.

Experts call one of the versions of the plane crash a bomb explosion in luggage compartment, which could lead to explosive depressurization of the aircraft due to a sharp pressure drop. A similar situation occurred with a Pan American Boeing 747 that crashed in December 1988. Then experts for a long time could not understand what caused the crash of the airliner, but after all the found wreckage of the plane was collected, in one of the sheets of the fuselage skin they saw a hole with curved edges the size of a watermelon. Experts determined that a plasticite-based bomb was placed in a small transistor and it exploded in the suitcase of one of the passengers in the luggage compartment. This passenger, who did not board the plane himself, was then a terrorist from Libya.

The source told the publication that there is also a version that the integrity of the airliner could have been damaged by a fatigue crack, which probably appeared in the fuselage frame. In 2001, an Airbus A321, which did not yet belong to Kogalymavia, hit the runway with its tail when landing at Cairo airport. This incident, which is called a “fellow touch” in aviation, led to a violation of the structural geometry and flight characteristics of the aircraft. A specialist interviewed by the publication believes that after an unsuccessful landing, the plane was checked using non-destructive testing and put into operation only after all defects were corrected.

“The accident-free flight statistics for aircraft like Airbus 321 are about 11-12 million hours. If an accident does occur, it means that something was overlooked during maintenance or repair,” the expert explained to Kommersant.

Another cause of depressurization could be a faulty engine. In case of non-localized destruction of the turbine, the blades that come off it, as experts say, fly out at great speed and, moving in one plane, cut the wing and fuselage of the airliner like a saw blade.

The newspaper's interlocutors note that the exact cause of the A321 crash will not be easy to establish. Readings from the black boxes will show how all the aircraft's systems functioned, as well as what measures the crew took. Probably, the cause of the plane crash will be suggested to experts by the last conversations of the crew members, if they managed to understand and discuss the cause of the plane crash. However, for a full investigation it is necessary to collect all the wreckage of the plane and reconstruct from it the outline of the crashed airliner.

It was established that the A321, when falling from a height, turned over and “literally fell on its back,” Interfax reported on Monday, citing an informed source in Cairo. The agency's interlocutor also said that the crew did not inform ground services about problems on board, did not send distress signals and did not request an emergency landing. At the same time, the source emphasized that it is premature to build any versions about the causes of the plane crash.

On the morning of October 31, Russian passenger Airbus A321 of Kogalymavia airlines crashed over the Sinai Peninsula during a flight from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. There were 224 people on board the plane, all of them died. The causes of the disaster are being established. The A321 black boxes were discovered on Saturday at the crash site, and specialists in Egypt deciphered them on Sunday. The IAC stated that the airliner is in the air.

The media called the cause of the A321 crash an “explosion in the plane of the engine.”

A321 crash site

Photo: epa/vostock-photo

An Airbus A321 crashed over the Sinai Peninsula due to an explosion in the area of ​​the aircraft engine: this is evidenced by data obtained during the investigation into the causes of the disaster. As RBC reports with reference to the publication Al-Masry Al-Youm, this was stated by a source in the investigative commission.

According to the publication’s interlocutor, experts completed decoding the “black boxes”, and the first results of the investigation were presented at a meeting of the international investigative commission on the evening of November 3.

An Airbus A321 source named an “explosion in the plane of the engine” as the main cause of the plane crash. At the same time, he emphasized that the cause of the explosion would need to be established through laboratory tests of the materials remaining on the bodies of the victims and at the crash site.

“The investigation still has suspicions about a possible terrorist attack. Samples taken from the bodies and wreckage of the plane will help determine whether the explosion was the result of a terrorist attack or a technical malfunction of the engine,” the source told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

The publication's source also added that the flight recorders recorded a rapid decrease in altitude. “The power of the explosion was great, both engines failed at once, the explosion caused fire and destruction of the plane in the air,” a source told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

The day before, the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi rejected the version of the A321 crash related to the terrorist attack. In an interview with The Telegraph, the Egyptian leader called reports that a bomb on the plane or a shell caused the crash to be “baseless speculation.” Further comments regarding the incident, in his opinion, are “premature and not based on any proper facts.”

An early version of the terrorist attack as possible reason The official representative of the Egyptian government also denied the crash of the Kogalymavia airliner Hussam al-Kuwaish. He emphasized that all the evidence indicates that a technical malfunction, and not an external influence, led to the plane crash in the Sinai Peninsula.

At the same time, the airline that owned the A321 said that the only explicable cause of the crash could be an external influence. “There is no failure that could cause the aircraft to break up in mid-air. In this case [if the systems failed], the plane would have collapsed [only] from hitting the ground,” Kogalymavia said.

As Yugopolis reported, in their opinion, the most likely cause of the plane crash over the Sinai Peninsula was the carrying of an explosive device on board the Airbus A321. At the same time, Stratfor noted that the possibility of aircraft failure cannot be completely ruled out.

An Airbus A321 of Kogalymavia Airlines, flying from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, crashed 100 km from the Egyptian city of El Arish on the morning of October 31. All 224 people on board were killed. Among the dead were two flight attendants - natives of Kuban. The Islamic State, banned in Russia, claimed responsibility for the plane crash on the same day, but subsequently the Russian authorities and Egyptian intelligence services denied information about the involvement of terrorists in the A321 crash. On November 4, IS militants reiterated their involvement in the downing of the plane.