Passenger plane plunges into Black Sea

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A TU-154 passenger plane flying from Tel Aviv to the Russian port of Novorossisk has crashed into the Black Sea with 66 people on board, a spokeswoman for Russia's Emergencies Ministry has said.

She said the airplane plunged into the sea 110 miles south of Novorossisk. She could not give any further details. The three-engine TU-154 can carry from 160 to 180 passengers.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

Answers

Response to RUSSIAN PASSENGER PLANE - Crashes into Black Sea

Reports are that plane exploded in midair, Tel Aviv airport closed down. Speculation is that it might have been a terorrist reprisal for Russia's cooperation in US action.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

Response to RUSSIAN PASSENGER PLANE - Crashes into Black Sea

News update just said it was an explosion...

http://www.boston.com/news/daily/04/russia_crash.htm

Plane down in Black Sea was Siberia Airlines flight By Reuters, 10/04/01

JERUSALEM -- The Russian passenger plane that crashed in the Black Sea on Thursday bound from Tel Aviv to Siberia was Siberia Airlines charter Flight 1812, a Tel Aviv airport spokeswoman said.

It was not immediately clear whether there was any link to the attacks on the United States on September 11 in which 6,000 people were killed or feared missing.

"It was a regular weekly charter that leaves between nine and 10 every Thursday," the spokeswoman said.

Another Tel Aviv airport official said: "All the flights have the same security checks. It's a direct flight."

The official said the flight was not a tourist flight. Tel Aviv officials said they did not know the cause of the crash.

Russia's Emergencies Ministry said the plane, bound for Novosibirsk, had 66 passengers and 10 crew members on board. Asked about the cause of the crash, another ministry official told Mayak radio: "Presumably, it was an explosion."

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

home : nation/world : europe : story

Russian Plane Explodes and Crashes The Associated Press Oct 4, 2001 : 8:34 am ET

MOSCOW -- A Russian airliner flying from Tel Aviv to Siberia exploded in flight Thursday and crashed off the Black Sea coast with at least 77 people on board, Russian officials said.

Deputy Transport Minister Karl Ruppel told The Associated Press that a crew of an Armenian airliner in the area informed Russian air traffic controllers in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia they saw an explosion aboard a plane flying nearby. Ruppel could not immediately say what the cause of the explosion was.

Ivan Teterian, chief of the local Ministry of Emergency Situations branch in southern Russia, said "we cannot exclude a terrorist attack." Speaking live on Russia's NTV television, he added that only a further investigation would determine the cause.

The plane, a Tupolev 154, went down 114 miles off the Russian coastal city of Adler on the border with Georgia, said Vasily Yurchuk, a spokesman for the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The aircraft

The plane, which plummeted from an altitude of more than six miles, had been on its way from Tel Aviv to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, Yurchuk said. It belonged to Sibir Airlines, which is based in Novosibirsk.

The Emergency Situations Ministry said there were at least 66 passengers and 11 crew members aboard.

The plane had made a stopover in Burgas in Bulgaria, where it apparently took on more passengers, Vladimir Kofman, an official with the Interstate Aviation Committee, which is in charge of investigating crashes in the former Soviet republics.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was immediately informed of the crash, the chief presidential press spokesman said. Putin called the head of the Federal Security Service and the Defense Minister to the Kremlin. He named Vladimir Rushailo, head of the Security Council, to head the investigation.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

TimeBomb now saying it was a missile.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

Fox says military exercise gone wrong--Ukraine exercise, apparently.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

Consensus now is that nobody really knows whether intentional or not, but was surface-to-air missile fired from Crimea.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

Thursday, October 4 10:49 PM SGT Russian plane may have been downed accidentally by Ukraine military: US

WASHINGTON, Oct 4 (AFP) - A Russian airliner that crashed into the Black Sea may have been accidentally shot down by the Ukrainian military during a training exercise, a US official said Thursday.

"It's possible that this was a tragic accident and not terrorism," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"At the moment we believe it was shot down by the Ukrainian government," the official said. "We thought it might be terrorism at first, but the Ukrainian government was known to be doing military exercises in the area and that jibes with reports that a missile brought it down."

"None of this is confirmed, but we are looking at it right now from this standpoint," the official said.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

TWA800 Deja Vu???

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

Ukraine is denying it shot the plane down. Interesting dance.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

Friday, October 5 12:31 AM SGT

Ukraine's defence ministry denies missile caused plane crash

KIEV, Oct 4 (AFP) - Ukraine's defence ministry formally denied Thursday that a Russian airliner that crashed into the Black Sea on a flight from Israel was accidentally shot down by a Ukrainian missile, Interfax reported.

Earlier a spokesman for the Ukrainian navy's Black Sea Fleet had said that the Sibir airline Tu-154 jet, with 76 people on board, plunged into the sea after an explosion caused by a Ukrainian missile exercise that went tragically wrong

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

Telegraph

`Bullet holes' found in cockpit (Filed: 05/10/2001)

THREE holes, thought to have been made by bullets, were discovered in a fragment of the cockpit of the Russian Tu-154 jet that crashed into the Black Sea, according to rescuers.

The captain of a dry cargo carrier involved in the rescue reported this to the transportation ministry, the Interfax news agency has reported.

The investigation has focused on whether the plane was a victim of a terrorist attack. Other unconfirmed reports said the Sibir Air jet was accidentally shot down during military exercises in Ukraine.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

Naw, it was a missile, guys. Prolly same caliber as took out JFK. You know, the one that does the loopdeloop and passes in and out a few times.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

http://www.boston.com/news/daily/05/russia_plane.htm

Ukraine appears to retreat on denial of missile hit

Workers comb Black Sea for plane wreckage

By Rosalind Russell, Reuters, 10/05/01

SOCHI, Russia -- Ukraine appeared to concede for the first time Friday that its military might have accidentally shot down a Russian airliner over the Black Sea, where rough weather was hampering salvage operations.

As darkness fell, trawlers and other vessels were combing the seas with nets for debris to try to unravel the mystery mid-air explosion of a Sibir airlines jet Thursday which killed up to 78 people traveling from Israel to Siberia.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh was quoted by Interfax- Ukraine news agency as saying the theory that a missile may have downed the plane "had a right to exist."

Asked to clarify the news report, Kinakh's spokesman said: "The prime minister said there were several theories and they all have a right to exist and it's too early to draw any conclusions because an investigation is under way."

It was the first statement by a senior Ukrainian official allowing the possibility that the plane was accidentally shot down by a long- range surface-to-air missile during military exercises on the southern Crimean Black Sea peninsula.

Ukraine had previously denied any role in the disaster, saying the Tupolev Tu-154 was out of range of the missiles.

U.S. officials have said all indications point to the plane having been shot down. They said a spy satellite had detected a missile's rocket plume.

Washington said Friday there was no reason to believe the disaster was an act of terrorism, one of the first theories put forward.

The mid-air explosion triggered fears of sabotage following the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, when hijacked airliners flew into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, leaving thousands dead or missing.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov appealed to the United States to make available any evidence of a missile strike -- a move which could lead to tension between Kiev and Moscow.

"If it was a rocket, it would be a very difficult situation," Alexander Saltanov, the head of the Africa and Middle East department of Russia's foreign ministry, told reporters in Sochi.

Russian officials said the salvage operation, 115 miles off the port of Sochi, was proving tough but said the search would continue overnight despite worsening conditions.

Deputy Emergencies Minister Alexander Moskalets said divers might be deployed while a specialist scientific research vessel would be brought in.

He said the plane's black box, which could hold vital clues to the airliner's last moments, would be "difficult to find." The jet went down where the water is more than 3,300 feet deep.

Friday, Russia also asked Israel and the United States for assistance in the salvage operation. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has already pledged Israel's cooperation -- most of the passengers were Russian- born Israelis flying from Tel Aviv.

At the crash site, workers lifted corpses from the water. Luggage, documents, rows of seats, and torn metal scraps were strewn across the sea. Officials said 14 bodies had been recovered and two identified.

Vladimir Rushailo, Russia's Security Council chief and head of a commission looking into the crash, said a door thought to be from the cockpit had been found with small holes in it.

"Only a ballistics expert can decide," Rushailo told a news conference. "We can confirm the presence of an explosion but we cannot say whether it was a rocket or a terror act."

Russian officials said 33 of the passengers' relatives had arrived in Sochi from Novosibirsk Friday and a further 60 were expected Saturday. Relatives from Israel were expected to arrive Sunday to be taken to identify the bodies.

Official accounts of the number of passengers and crew on board the Tupolev varied between 74 and 78. An Emergencies Ministry official in Novosibirsk said the crew were all Russian but that most of the 65 or so passengers were Israeli citizens.

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001

What if . . . ?

"Someone" knew that terrorists had taken over the plane, so they shot it down before it could be used to strike a target?

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001