Terrorist Attack or Poor Maintenance?

A Russian aircraft has crashed while flying at altitude, the safest period of flight. The question now is, why? A terrorist, ISIS in Egypt, has taken responsibility for the crash. Is this a case of terrorism resulting from Russia's intervention in Syria or is this just another case of poor maintenance. Russian airlines do have

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/01/us-egypt-crash-idUSKCN0SP06V20151101

Russia's air safety record is appalling.

"The country’s carriers suffered a series of high-profile commercial jet crashes from 2010 to 2013, raising Russia’s accident rate far above the global average and prompting top-level government efforts to upgrade oversight. With an array of legacy and startup carriers serving sometimes poorly equipped fields, Russian safety regulators have faced immense challenges. By some measures, only Africa had a higher accident rate than the combined safety record of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States during the first three years of this decade." http://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-crash-mars-kremlins-efforts-to-improve-air-safety-1446339125

It's too early to tell the cause with any degree of certitude. The stories keep changing. But based on the descriptions I have heard, my initial thought, is terrorism, a bomb on board the aircraft. However, it is also possible maintenance issues brought the aircraft down. The aircraft was old iron, an old aircraft. It is equally possible, stress fractures caused the aircraft to disintegrate in flight.

So which is it, poor maintenance or terrorism? While I would never fly on Russian aircraft because of Russia's poor aircraft safety record, I think this is probably a case of terrorism. If it is, it will be interesting to see how Russia handles it. If it is terrorism, will the Russian state controlled media report it as such and if it does will that cause Putin to suffer some blowback for his Syrian intervention? If it is terrorism, Russia will need to step up security on all its civilian flights or retreat from Syria. So what happens next?

 

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Egyptians are analysing crash. Until they finish, what we have is just guesswork.

 

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True enough, but being a pilot, I like to speculate. There aren't many options here. It's either a structural issue caused by poor maintenance, terrorism, or pilot error. I've seen no evidence of pilot error.

 

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You wouldn't see any evidence of that. The co-pilot didn't like the condition of the plane, but the Russians will leave it ambiguous as long as possible to drum up international support for their campaign in Syria. ISIS isn't in Egypt really, but it hardly matters.

 

Well here is why I'm thinking terrorism, initial reports indicate the plane broke in half. That's structurally the strongest part of any aircraft. And now there is the report of a satellite showing a flash at altitude. That's indicative of an on board explosion. The two most likely causes for that kind of explosion are a fuel tank explosion or a bomb. Given, this is an old aircraft and there have been no problems with fuel tank explosions in this aircraft, I lean toward terrorism as the cause.

I heard the story about the co-pilot didn't like the condition of the aircraft. It was first reported, then it was discredited and now it's back. But even if it is true, that isn't unusual and it doesn't explain how it could cause the aircraft to split in two. As noted in the OP, Russian aircraft are known for poor maintenance. I understand this carrier is paying its employees in arrears. If this carrier were a Western carrier, it would have been shut down a long time ago.

What is most interesting about this event is how governments react to it, in particular, how the Russian government reacts to it. Whither the plane was downed by poor maintenance or by terrorism, either event presents problems and opportunities for all involved governments. Putin has used terrorism before to his political advantage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings

 

Noted. It seems I could have been wrong about the possibility of terrorism: for some reason, I'd thought it was going to Egypt when it crashed. (That still doesn't mean it wasn't terrorism starting in Russia: lots of angry Islamists there too.) So the US and UK think it may well have terrorism, or say they do. They'll report on Monday if they have any evidence for it. And they have a fairly convincing case, whoever is ultimately responsible:

(CNN)European investigators who analyzed the two flight recorders from the Metrojet plane that went down last weekend in Egypt are categorically saying the crash is not an accident, CNN affiliate France 2 reported Friday.

The investigators said the cockpit voice recorder of Metrojet Flight 9268shows an explosion and the flight data recorder confirms the explosion is not accidental -- there is no sign of mechanical malfunction during the initial part of the flight, France 2 reported.

Everything is fine during the first 24 minutes, then in a fraction of a second there is a blackout and no more cockpit conversation, convincing investigators there was a bomb on board, according to France 2.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/06/middleeast/russian-plane-crash-egypt-sinai/
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WOW, much disscussion has been lost, apparently due to the hard drive crash.

 

My two posts have been lost, it seems. I'm undecided whether it was the CIA, MI-6, or the FSB responsible for taking them out. (That's a subject for the 'conspiracy' forum.)

They were speculations that the plane was likely downed by a bomb as opposed to a catastrophic mechanical failure, that the bomb was apparently at the rear of the plane, perhaps in a galley/food-preparation area just forward of the aft pressure bulkhead, and that it may have been smuggled aboard by the food caterers at the Sharm al Sheikh airport.

 

The British say that most likely it was a bomb and have dropped hints that they have communications intercepts from the terrororists in the Sinai supporting that conclusion.

The Russians had been criticising the British for halting flights, saying that conclusions about bombs was premature and that everyone should wait for the results of the crash inquiry. The Russian foreign minister also complained that if the British or the US have intelligence about the crash, they should share it with Russia and with the inquiry. Then Cameron reportedly phoned Putin, and just a few hours after that conversation, Putin halted Russian flights as well, reportedly on the advice of the FSB director.

This is entirely speculative on my part, but if you look at the flight-path of the Russian plane, it was parallel to and about 50 miles (80km) west of the Egypt/Israel border. I think that we can expect that the Israelis have formidable communications intercept capabilities near the border, listening to both the ISIS terrorists and to the Egyptian military. The British and the Americans are less likely to have communications intercept capabilities nearby in the Sinai region. So I'm speculating (that's all it is) that the communications intercepts that the British were hinting about may have originally come from Israel. I'm guessing that the US received them too. That may explain why the Russians were initially kept out of the loop. Perhaps the Israelis, who have been improving their relationship with Russia recently, ok'd sharing the information with Russia, before Cameron spoke to Putin.

Of course it's well known that the British have a huge GCHQ operation in Cyprus, listening to the entire Middle East (especially Syria, I guessing) so it's conceivable that the UK developed these intercepts themselves using their own world-class resources. They might not have initially told the Russians out of governmental inertia, since this kind of communications intelligence begins its life classified, and distribution to somebody not authorized in standing orders to receive it would require a high-level decision.

 

Per my previous posts which have been lost, Russia and Egypt have an interest in making this a case of poor maintenance rather than terrorism. Egypt is very dependent upon the tourist trade and the last thing Egypt needs or wants is a terrorist attack which kills tourists. On the other hand, Russia doesn't want Russians to know Putin has made Russia a prime target for terrorists attacks with his intervention in Syria to support Assad. Up until yesterday, up until the intelligence briefing with the UK and US, Russia was going down the anything other than terrorism path with Egypt.

After yesterdays intelligence briefing with the UK and US, Russia has done an about face and has halted all Russian flights to and from Egypt and in doing so left thousands of Russians stranded in Egypt. How do those stranded Russians be back to Mother Russia?

It has been recently reported that an analysis of the plane's black box indicates an explosion occurred which is consistent with previously reported radar data and wreckage and is very indicative of terrorism. I expect Egypt will try, as it has already done, to beef up security and to delay releasing any final report into perpetuity. The last thing Egypt wants to admit to is a terrorist event occurred and tourists were killed.

The next question is what does Russia do next? Will Russia actually begin to attack ISIS in earnest? Will Russia beef up security on it is airliners? It can ill afford to do either. And then the big question, will ISIS attack other Russian aircraft and domestically? It would give Putin a great excuse to increase his domestic powers and prosecute dissidents. Russian aircraft operating in less developed countries and regions like Africa are ripe targets for ISIS and other terrorists.

Also, in a previous and now missing post, it was reported another Russian aircraft had crashed in Africa. It was a Russian made and owned aircraft. However, unlike the Egyptian crash, all indications are that crash was due to poor maintenance.

 

Just another idea:
Prior to the reports of IS chatter I felt there may be another possible:

A revenge attack for the missile attack in the Ukraine that brought down flight MH17.
The timing of the report's release was on the 13 /10/2015 and anger over it's results may have resulted in a sort of pay back by aggrieved relatives.

MH17 Report: 13/10
MF9268 crash: 31/10

But now the unfalsifiable reports of IS chatter seem pretty convincing.

I would have thought the cock pit recorder sound track should have been pretty well conclusive as to bomb or not and am puzzling over why there has been delay in clarification.
There is a lot at stake, I guess, regarding causation and ramification etc...

 

To me the real question is that given the incredible brutality of the IS agenda, why haven't they launched a string of aircraft bombings across all nations already... What would be stopping them?
So I have my doubts that it was ISIL simply because if it were they would have been doing this sort of thing years ago and not just now.

 

It's indicative their power is growing. The ISIS organization is expanding. Where it was once isolated to Syria and Iraq, it's now in many countries. Their capabilities are growing. Earlier they didn't have the capability, they may now have that capability. If they are responsible for this bombing, it's a warning. They selected a very easy target. Placing a bomb on aircraft owned and operated by a Western country is bit more difficult as security is much more rigorous.

 

As I previously wrote, it's now political. Egypt and Russia don't want to acknowledge this event as terrorism. Egypt is heavily dependent upon tourism. Putin has sold himself as Russia's protector. His protection doesn't look so good if 224 Russians fall victim to terrorism.

 

It is also possible that the investigators are dealing with a serious mystery ( the problem may be much worse than a terrorist attack for example) and public pressure is forcing them to come to a conclusion.
Typically if a bomb or missile was involved this would be pretty damn obvious as was the case with MH17 just by chemical residues and other evidence found on the wreckage. Downing of MH17 was declared an explosion almost immediately for example...
(The Egyptian President has sent the sound recordings for specialist analysis when it should be pretty obvious whether bomb or not..like Boom! sounds are hard to miss if you know what I mean)
They have had access to the black boxes since the 1/11/2015. It is now some 8 days since then... The world is already expecting a "by terrorist " verdict. Something doesn't add up. IMO
"If it's unknown , blame ISIL" sort of outcome

 

Who says the evidence isn't overwhelming? Based on what has been reported, it is. But the two parties involved, Egypt and Russia have no interest in a speedy resolution for reasons previously explained. So I seriously doubt the final report will be forthcoming any time soon.

There is no evidence a missile was involved, but there is overwhelming evidence the flight was destroyed by an on-board bomb. And as evidenced by the OP, it was very obvious from the beginning. Aircraft just do not completely disintegrate at altitude or break into two parts at altitude without some external force. I'm a pilot, my interest in aviation is why I created this thread. Any pilot should be easily able to access what happened to this flight. It wasn't a natural event.

The only questions which remain unanswered, at least to the public, are the names of the individuals involved. ISIS has already claimed responsibility for the attack. So are they lying? Perhaps they are. That's why the investigation should continue. It isn't a case of "If it's unknown, blame ISIL" sort of deal. It's ISIL has already admitted guilt, so it's a trust but verify kind of deal.

 

Maybe it's just me...but I find it strange that even though they "apparently" have overwhelming evidence that is was a bomb the USA is still saying that they are not totally convinced that it was.
Perhaps it is just the nature of media reporting etc... or perhaps it is just a courtesy to the Egyptians to allow them to declare the situation...

USA "99.9% certain"
British: "More likely a bomb than not..."
Either way flights cancelled, re-routed or other wise altered. Egyptian tourist industry seriously effected.

 

Well, let's look at it this way, pure gold is 99.9% gold. The only uncertainty here is the veracity of the data. If the data is as reported, then it was certainly a bomb which brought down the airliner. Anyone who says otherwise is speaking out of ignorance or politics. And as of this writing, there is no reason to disbelieve the veracity of the data which has been reported. As previously mentioned, there are a lot of politics at work here. The two injured parties have no interest in seeing the incident named as a terrorist event.

Yes, Egyptian tourism has been adversely affected. For the Egyptians, its now all about mitigating the damage to its tourism industry.

 

I think the most interesting question now is how Russia, and more importantly Putin, reacts to this event. Russia hasn't acknowledged it was a terrorist event, but after a briefing by the UK and the US is behaving as if it were a terrorist event. Does this event hail another Muslim insurgency within Russian borders? Nearly 7% of the Russian population is Muslim and many of Russia's neighbors are mostly Muslim, and Russia's borders are porous. If Putin's military excursion in Syria places Russia in the target hairs of terrorists, it wouldn't be good for Putin or Russia.

It's not like Putin hasn't faced an Islamic led revolution before. Because he has and he brutally repressed it. But this time, it could be coming back in spades and it would be much more difficult to contain and suppress this time around. Because it isn't confined geographic boundaries. If Putin finds himself in the cross-hairs of Islamic terrorism it will be Afghanistan 2.0 for Mother Russia. How does the man respond to it. Terrorism makes Putin look weak and Putin hates appearing weak.

 

According to some reports Putin has started deploying the advanced S-300 SAM systems in Syria and if true would indicate he intends to shut down Syrian and potentially surrounding air space to the alliance air strikes against ISIL.
This would be an extremely worrying development ( if true ) to the USA I would think.
Perhaps if ISIL is found responsible for the commercial jet tragedy Putin may rethink his strategy in Syria and begin to understand why the world generally is so concerned about the ISIL phenomena. Up to date Putin appears to consider ISIL as just another common terrorist organization which could prove a grave mistake IMO.

I gotta wonder just how insulated Putin actually is to what is happening in the ME and Europe right now. I wonder how realistic his information is and how realistic his perception of events is. As it stands it is like he and Russia are on another planet or living in an alternative universe of some sort. Oblivious to climate change and ISIL religious radicalization.

There is a quickly receding opportunity that the world can take hold of. ISIL has provided a vehicle in which the world can finally, come together and fight a common enemy. The downing of this commercial airline may yet provide the motivation for Russia to join the West in the degradation of the ISIL phenomena.
Because ISIL poses a threat greater than any nation building "power games" Putin may have, he may just be able to see where his priorities may need to be.