terrorisim in russia
Top Russian Official: Plane Terror Likely

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By MARIA DANILOVA, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - A top Russian official acknowledged Thursday what many citizens already suspected — that terrorism was the most likely cause of two jetliners crashing minutes apart, a feeling reflected in a newspaper headline warning that "Russia now has a Sept. 11."


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Slideshow: Russian Plane Crashes


 

A day after officials stressed there were many possibilities besides terrorism, presidential envoy Vladimir Yakovlev told Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency that the main theory "all the same remains terrorism."


Yakovlev said the planes' flight recorders provide no clues to the disaster. He said both boxes had shut off abruptly without any indication of trouble, a sign U.S. aviation experts said was strong evidence of explosions.


Also, Transport Minister Igor Levitin confirmed Sibir airlines' report that its crew activated an emergency signal shortly before the plane disappeared from radar. Visiting the crash site, however, he said that details were slim because "no verbal confirmation from the crew was received" saying what the problem was.


Officials previously said there was no indication of trouble from a Volga-Aviaexpress airliner that also crashed late Tuesday, although people on the ground reported hearing a series of explosions.


Russian media also raised questions about a possible link between the crashes and an explosion a few hours earlier at a bus stop on a road leading to Domodedovo airport, where the two doomed planes took off. Without citing evidence, the reports suggested the blast, which wounded four people, might have been an effort to distract attention.


Suspicions of terrorism came after warnings from officials that separatists might plan attacks before an election this Sunday in Chechnya (news - web sites) to replace the war-torn region's assassinated pro-Kremlin president. The rebels have made attacks in Moscow and other cities, hijacked planes outside Russia and allegedly staged suicide bombings.


"I am inclined to think that it is a terrorist act, because there are too many coincidences," said Ruben Suryaninov, an elderly retiree. "What needs to happen so that two planes going from the same airport would bang at the same moment?"


"It's too suspicious," agreed Natalia Kozhelupova, a physicist who was out on a national day of mourning for the 89 people killed in the crashes. Russia's tricolor flag flew at half-staff and television canceled entertainment programs.


Despite Yakovlev's statement about terrorism, the government was still officially investigating all possibilities — bombs, hijackers, mechanical failure, bad fuel and human error. Officials said no evidence had been found pointing to terrorism, and no one has claimed to have caused the crashes.


The government had hoped the jetliners' flight data recorders would shed some light, but Yakovlev told state-run First Channel that experts found the boxes in both planes shut off before indicating any problems.


Yakovlev, the president's envoy for southern Russia, where one of the planes crashed, said the recorders "turned off immediately" — an indication "that something happened very fast."


Bill Waldock, aviation safety professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, said a sudden stoppage of a plane's two recorders indicates that its electrical system was cut. "An explosion could interrupt electrical power," he said, adding that it was extremely unlikely that another problem would cause four boxes in two planes to quit abruptly.


If something went wrong with a plane's mechanical or electrical systems, "more protracted data would show up," Waldock said. The cockpit voice recorder would pick up pilots' conversations as they dealt with the problem, while the flight data recorder would note such information as altitude, air speed, heading and vertical acceleration.


Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board (news - web sites), also said the abrupt shutoffs mostly likely point to explosions. But raised the possibility that the recorders weren't working properly.


"Given that Russian regional aviation has never been known for its maintenance standards, it would not surprise me that the FDRs and CVRs were not working correctly, if at all," Goelz said.


The planes — a Sibir Tu-154 with 46 aboard and a Volga-Aviaexpress Tu-134 with 43 people — disappeared from radar almost simultaneously around 11 p.m. Tuesday. The Tu-134 was headed to the southern city of Volgograd and the other plane to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, where President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) was vacationing. They had taken off about 40 minutes apart.

 



A government commission appointed to investigate traveled Thursday to the site where the Tu-134 crashed, about 120 miles south of Moscow. Emergency crews had already completed their work there, but others continued to check the wreckage of the Tu-154 a few hundred miles south.

"There is still no clear-cut concept of what occurred, because the procedure of deciphering the data recorders will be conducted more than once," Levitin, the transport minister and head of the commission, was quoted as saying by ITAR-Tass.

Oleg Panteleyev, an independent aviation expert in Russia, said that just because no clear evidence of terrorism had been found, didn't mean that wasn't the cause.

Any other explanation "seems to be purely impossible," he told The Associated Press. "But then again, absolutely incredible things can happen in life."

Many ordinary Russians have ingrained doubts about the government's candor after the confused and contradictory reports on the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk (news - web sites) in 2000 and the still-murky 2002 seizure of a Moscow theater by Chechen rebels.

"I never trust what the authorities are saying, but in this case, I don't know — it could have been an accident or a terrorist act," said Yevgeny Skepner, a 37-year-old computer programmer.

Still, Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst who is often critical of the government, said Moscow would have nothing to gain in covering up a terror attack.

"For the companies, the aviation industry, society and Russia as a whole, it would be better ... because otherwise it means that things are really bad here — we have bad planes that crash to the ground one after another," he said. "The fact that it is not being called a terrorist act, means they have no such evidence ... because hiding a terrorist act is impossible."

Panteleyev disagreed. "To miss such a major terrorist act for the security services means to acknowledge their impotence," he said.

russia will not play politics or pattycake with their terrorists

lets hope they wake up and open up a can of whoop ass.

next up... France

Quoted: russia will not play politics or pattycake with their terrorists

That's one thing I admire about Mother Russia.

Quoted: a new friend to help us kill...terrorists.

Yea after all that help they gave us after 9/11 and I raq huh?  

And another friend in the UN. Even as worthless as they are, it isn't wise to be enemies of everyone.

True.  Russia doesnt play games, or politics with terrorist.  They kill them plain and simple.

Quoted: Quoted: russia will not play politics or pattycake with their terrorists That's one thing I admire about Mother Russia.

someone forgot to tell the chechens about this......  the russians may be 'cruel' and utelize torture more freely and such, but they are not near as effecient at killing terrorists as we are.

Yes, IF they ever formally acknowledge that it was terrorism.  The black eye may be something they just don't want to admit, as it might encourage more to try, considering the apparent success of this operation.

But if they do, woe be they who poke a pointy stick into the flesh of Mother Russia.


Woody

Yakovlev, the president's envoy for southern Russia, where one of the planes crashed, said the recorders "turned off immediately" — an indication "that something happened very fast." Bill Waldock, aviation safety professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, said a sudden stoppage of a plane's two recorders indicates that its electrical system was cut. "An explosion could interrupt electrical power," he said, adding that it was extremely unlikely that another problem would cause four boxes in two planes to quit abruptly.

BOTH recorders on BOTH planes just happened to lose power instantaneously? I smell a cover-up.

BTW, the Russians have never considered the idea of designing 60 seconds worth of UPS into their black boxes?

While tragic, two planes with 89 people isn't exactly like 9/11 with the World Trade Center at about 3,000.

Didn't the Russians gas a movie theatre?

We'd never do that here to rescue hostages.

CRC

Quoted: Quoted: a new friend to help us kill...terrorists. Yea after all that help they gave us after 9/11 and I raq huh?

Actually they've helped us with 9/11 a lot more than CNN reports.  

Quoted: Didn't the Russians gas a movie theatre? We'd never do that here to rescue hostages. CRC

Not only did they gas it, when they went it they shot all the terrorists point blank.  Public reason was so they could not wake up and set off a bomb, but it does nicely take care of taking prisonors and a trial.

I think the attack and hostage crisis at the Moscow Theatre in October 2002 was far more horrifying than this attack.  Plus, there's a lot of footage, much of it filmed by the terrorists and sent live to their financiers in the Persian Gulf.

Quoted: Didn't the Russians gas a movie theatre? We'd never do that here to rescue hostages. CRC

Yes, they did. Killed all the terrorists point blank.

On a sidenote, about 120 russian civilians also died because of the gas.

Quoted: Didn't the Russians gas a movie theatre? We'd never do that here to rescue hostages. CRC

No we don't..but I have been in a couple the movie theaters that I would have liked to gas the people that were there...

I love how people are now having their own "September 11th's"...give me a fucking break...

September 11 is ours to mourn...no one else's....when they lose nearly 3,000 people on a single day,  call me...

Don't they need to start worrying about heating oil or something...

Quoted: russia will not play politics or pattycake with their terrorists

While they may have the attitude, they have neither the technology nor the competence to destroy the terrorists.  Just walk up to any Russian veteran and utter the word "mujahideen" and he'll likely run away screaming.  The one hope is that they'll take the Iran situation more seriously now and bomb those reactors.  After all, that's right on their doorstep.

russia will get heavy handed now, just watch

Quoted: Quoted: russia will not play politics or pattycake with their terrorists That's one thing I admire about Mother Russia.

You should look into how they handled the kidnapping of some of their people in Lebanon in the 1980s.

"Russia now has a Sept. 11."

So...do they have to buy new calendars now?