Two Russian passenger planes crashed almost simultaneously late
on Tuesday night killing all?89 on board, and security
officials said they were investigating a possible terrorist
attack.
The planes disappeared from air traffic controllers' radar screens
within minutes of each other and one Tu-154, carrying 46 passengers
and crew, sent a hijack alarm before crashing near the southern
Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
President Vladimir Putin ordered the FSB security service to
investigate the crashes, which came before Sunday's presidential
election in Chechnya where separatists have threatened to disrupt
the poll with violence. Yesterday Putin returned to Moscow from the
Black Sea resort of Sochi hours after the crash.
"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," the Interfax news agency quoted an aviation source
as saying. "In such a situation one could not exclude a terrorist
act."
Witnesses on the ground heard an explosion on board the second
plane, a Tu-134 carrying?43 passengers and crew, just before
it crashed near Tula, 150 kilometers south of Moscow.
There were no foreigners on board the planes, which both took
off from Moscow's Domodedovo airport.
"Around 11 pm, give or take five minutes, there was this strange
noise in the sky, then this torn-up book fell onto our garage," a
local man told NTV television, holding up the book with its
tattered pages.
The Interfax news agency said emergency workers spotted a fire
about 965 kilometres south of Moscow in the region where the second
plane went missing.
News agencies quoted security officials saying they could not
rule out terrorism, while Rostov prosecutors opened a criminal
probe into the crash of the Sibir Airlines Tu-154 en route to the
Black Sea resort of Sochi.
"A minute before the plane disappeared from the radar screens
the interior ministry received a report from an air traffic
controller that there had been an attack on the crew," Interfax
quoted an Interior Ministry official as saying.
A spokesman said: "We are considering an act of terror as one
possibility, especially after we received an automatically
generated message from the Sochi air control centre that the plane
had been hijacked."
The incidents came against a backdrop of mounting violence in
Chechnya, where Moscow has been battling separatists for a decade.
Rebels launched a major raid in the local capital Grozny last week
and have promised more attacks.
The plane which crashed near Tula, operated by
Volga-Aviaexpress, came down after nearly reaching its cruising
altitude. The company said the plane was in good shape and its
passengers had undergone all necessary security checks.
"I rule out pilot error, because even in the most serious
conditions which can affect this kind of plane, such as loss of
control or fire, the crew always has time to pass on information to
the ground," Yuri Dmitriev, director of Volgograd airport, told
Russia's Channel One television.
An Emergencies Ministry spokeswoman said there was no chance of
anyone surviving as the plane fell from 10,000 metres. Wreckage was
spread over several kilometres with some pieces about the size of a
car, TV footage showed.
Three minutes after the Volga-Aviaexpress Tu-134 crashed, air
traffic controllers lost contact with the Sibir Tu-154. Its
wreckage was not found until yesterday morning.
Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu told Russian television that
nearly all of the victims' bodies had been found, and flight
recorders from both planes had been recovered.
Details of crashed planes
Below is key information about the two flights:
Moscow-Sochi:
Airline: Sibir Airlines
Flight number: 1047
Aircraft type: Tu-154
Passengers: 46 people including eight crew
Left Moscow's Domodedovo airport at 9:35 pm (1735 GMT)
Contact lost at 10:59 pm (1859 GMT)
Estimated crash location: about 140 kilometres from the city of
Rostov-on-Don, near the Ukrainian border.
Moscow-Volgograd:
Airline: Volga-Aviaexpress
Flight number: 1303
Aircraft type: Tu-134
Passengers:?43 including?eight crew
Left Moscow's Domodedovo airport at 10:15 pm (1815 GMT)
Contact lost at 10:56 pm (1856 GMT)
Estimated crash location: Tula region, near the village of
Buchalka.
(China Daily August 26, 2004)
