National Post (National Edition)
Terror attack not ruled out in Russian crash
SOCHI, RUSSIA • Backed by ships, helicopters and drones, Russian rescue teams searched Sunday for victims after a Russian plane carrying 92 people to Syria crashed into the Black Sea shortly after takeoff.
Investigators said they were looking into every possible cause for the crash, including a terror attack.
All 84 passengers and eight crew members on the Russian military’s Tu-154 plane are believed to have died when it crashed two minutes after taking off at 5:25 a.m. in good weather from the southern Russian city of Sochi. The passengers included dozens of singers in Russia’s world-famous military choir.
More than 3,000 rescue workers on 32 ships — including over 100 divers flown in from across Russia — were searching the crash site at sea and along the shore, the Defence Ministry said. Helicopters, drones and submersibles were being used to help spot bodies and debris. Powerful spotlights were brought in so the operation could continue all night.
Emergency crews found fragments of the plane about 1.5 kilometres from shore. By Sunday evening, rescue teams had recovered 11 bodies and Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said fragments of other bodies were also found.
Asked if a terror attack was a possibility, Sokolov said investigators were looking into every possible reason for the crash. Several experts noted factors that suggested a terror attack, such as the crew’s failure to report any malfunction and the fact that plane debris was scattered over a wide area.
The plane was taking the Defence Ministry’s choir, the Alexandrov Ensemble, to perform at a New Year’s concert at Hemeimeem air base in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia. Those on board also included nine Russian journalists and a Russian doctor famous for her work in war zones.
Russian President Vladimir Putin went on television to declare Monday a nationwide day of mourning.
“We will conduct a thorough investigation into the reasons and will do everything to support the victims’ families,” Putin said.
The Black Sea search area — which covered over 10 square kilometres — was made more difficult by underwater currents that carried debris and body fragments into the open sea.
Sokolov said the plane’s flight recorders did not have radio beacons, so locating them on the seabed was going to be challenging.
The Tu-154 is a Soviet-built three-engine airliner designed in the late 1960s. More than 1,000 have been built, and they have been used extensively in Russia and worldwide. The plane that crashed Sunday was built in 1983, and underwent factory check-ups and maintenance in 2014 and this year, according to the Defence Ministry.
Magomed Tolboyev, a decorated Russian test pilot, said it was clear that all on board had died in the crash.
“There is no chance to survive in such situation,” he said, according to the Interfax news agency.
Before Sokolov spoke to reporters in Sochi, senior Russian lawmakers had ruled out a terror attack, arguing that the military plane was under reliable protection. Security is particularly tight in Sochi, the Black Sea city that hosted the 2014 Winter Games and is regularly visited by Putin, who often receives foreign leaders at his residence there.
But some experts said the crew’s failure to report a malfunction pointed at a possible terror attack.
“Possible malfunctions ... certainly wouldn’t have prevented the crew from reporting them,” Vitaly Andreyev, a former senior Russian air traffic controller, told RIA Novosti.
Vadim Lukashevich, an independent aviation expert, told Dozhd TV that the crew’s failure to communicate an equipment failure and the large area over which the plane’s fragments were scattered raises the possibility of an attack.
Alexander Gusak, a former chief of a SWAT team at the main domestic security agency, the FSB, told Dozhd that Russian airports are still vulnerable to terror threats despite security cordons.
“It’s possible to penetrate them. It’s a matter of skills,” he said.