‘No proof’ plane broke up in mid-air
Print Edition
EGYPT’S civil aviation ministry said yesterday there were no facts to substantiate assertions by Russian officials that the Russian airliner that crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Saturday broke up in mid-air.
Spokesman Mohamed Rahmi, however, confirmed that no distress call had been received before the crash, which left wreckage from the Metrojet Airbus 321, carrying Russian holidaymakers back to Saint Petersburg from the Sinai Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, strewn over more than 3 kilometers of desert.
“No communication from the pilot was recorded at the navigation centers requesting anything,” he said.
Rahmi said the investigating team, led by Egypt and assisted by experts from Russia, Airbus and Ireland, where the plane is registered, had returned to the crash site yesterday morning.
Once investigations at the site are completed, probably later in the day, they will focus on analyzing the contents of the black box flight recorders, Rahmi said.
Sources on the investigation committee have said that the recorders are in good condition and should yield clues.
Rahmi said there was no proof yet that the plane had broken up in flight.
“This could be a long process and we can’t talk about the results as we go along,” he said.
However, the fact that no distress call was received, and the wreckage was scattered widely, suggests a sudden breakup to many experts.
Theories floated thus far range from a missile attack, to a bomb on board, or a structural failure.
A Sinai-based Egyptian militant group allied to Islamic State claimed on Saturday to have shot down the plane in response to Russia’s military intervention in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad against rebels including Islamic State.
However, the militants are not believed to have missiles capable of hitting a plane at 9,000 meters.
Structural weakness
A source in the committee analyzing the flight recorders said on Monday that the plane had not been struck from the outside. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday that it was inappropriate to link the crash to Russia’s military strategy in Syria.
Some have pointed to an incident in 2001, when the Airbus 321’s tail section struck the tarmac on landing, as a possible cause of structural weakness.
Faulty “tail-strike” repairs have caused at least two catastrophic crashes in the past. However, the plane had passed safety checks and its operator, Kogalymavia, owner of the Metrojet brand, has said damage from the 2001 mishap was fully repaired and could not have been a factor in the Sinai crash.
The head of the health unit at Sharm el-Sheikh airport, Medhat Qandil, said the remains of the last 28 people killed in the crash had been sent to Moscow yesterday aboard a military jet, along with luggage from the doomed plane and personal belongings found at the crash site.
The bodies of all the other 196 dead passengers and crew had already arrived in Russia, but the final 28 were delayed as the corpses were not intact and required search teams to gather up body parts and conduct DNA tests, Qandil said.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
