CAIRO, November 7. /Corr. TASS Dina Drunk/. In the last seconds of the flight recorder recording of the Russian A321 that crashed in Egypt, an extraneous sound is heard. This was announced on Saturday by the head of the international commission to investigate the causes of the crash of the airliner, Ayman al-Mukaddam.

According to him, both “black boxes” were found on the first day of the crash, and the scattering of debris is more than 12 km, but not all of them could be found. “All recovered parts of the aircraft will be transported to a safe place in Cairo for further examination,” he said.

“The initial decoding of the parametric “black box” indicates that the takeoff was made at 03:50:06 UTC (06:50:06 Moscow time). The recording of the recorders stopped at 04:13:20 (07:13:20 Moscow time), - said "Thus, the duration from the moment of takeoff until the recording stopped was 23 minutes 14 seconds. The last recording records the altitude at 30,888 feet (about 9,414 meters), while the aircraft was in the climb stage."

According to him, the last recorded speed was 281 knots (about 521 km/h). “The autopilot was turned on until the end of the parametric recorder recording,” al-Muqaddam added.

As for the voice recorder, as the head of the investigation indicated, “it was safely unloaded and the first decoding has already been done.” “However, the team studying it is still in the deciphering stage, which will take some time,” he said.

“It has now been established that noise is heard in the last seconds of the recording,” Alt-Mukaddam noted. “The nature of this sound will be determined in a special laboratory, where a spectral analysis will be carried out.”

The day before, a source in the Russian representation at the commission said that the Russian side “has no confirmation of the fact of an explosion on board the plane.”

All versions are being studied

As the head of the commission emphasized, the debris found at the crash site of the Russian A321 in Sinai does not allow us to determine the nature of the impact and the exact causes of the disaster.

“The plane broke up in the air, and so far it is not possible to say exactly the reasons for this,” he said. “The wreckage of the airliner did not give us a clear picture of what happened.”

All versions of the Russian A321 crash in Egypt are currently being studied, he said. “We have not yet come to a final conclusion,” al-Muqaddam emphasized.

Earlier, the director of the FSB of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bortnikov, said that he considers it necessary to suspend Russian aviation flights to Egypt until the true causes of the tragedy with the A321 are established. “Until we decide on the true reasons for what happened, I consider it advisable to suspend Russian aviation flights to Egypt. This applies primarily to the tourist channel,” Bortnikov said. Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed with the recommendation of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee. On November 6 at 20.00, air traffic with Egypt was suspended.

Egypt asks to share information

Cairo called on all parties to share information on the crash of the Russian A321 in the sky above Sinai Peninsula.

“There have been reports in the media, including citing official intelligence, that support a certain scenario,” he said. “In this regard, the commission states that it has not received any information or evidence in this regard. We call on the sources of these reports provide comprehensive data that will help us complete our mission."

“I said that we are ready to accept any information regarding the disaster from any party. We need any information... And if any party wants to provide us with information, we have no objections,” al-Muqaddam said.

“The commission is now considering all possible scenarios for the incident, but so far we have not come to any conclusion,” al-Muqaddam said.

Common information about the disaster Russian plane, which we heard about, were not made available to the Egyptian intelligence services in detail. We expected that all Technical information about this question. Foreign intelligence services did not cooperate with Egypt in investigating the cause of the crash of the Russian airliner

Egyptian Foreign Minister

Sameh Shukri

Composition of the commission

According to al-Muqaddam, the investigation commission included 47 investigators. “Among them are 29 from Egypt, seven from the Russian Federation, six from France, two from Germany and three from Ireland (the country of registration of the aircraft),” he emphasized. “In addition, they include 10 technical advisers from Airbus and one from IASA ( International Association on flight safety). A total of 58 experts."

As al-Muqaddam noted, investigators visited the crash site five times, “the last time last Wednesday.” “Currently there are bad weather conditions that do not allow getting to the disaster area,” he said. “As soon as it allows, they will head there again.”

The Ministry of Emergency Situations still remains in Sinai

A rescue team from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations remains in the area of ​​the A321 plane crash on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

“Russian rescuers are assisting specialists of the Interstate Aviation Committee, which is engaged in identifying the causes of the disaster,” Alexander Agafonov, head of the EMERCOM operational group in Sinai, head of the Department of Fire and Rescue Forces and Military Units, told TASS.

Disaster in Egypt

The A321 aircraft of the Russian airline Kogalymavia, operating flight 9268 Sharm el-Sheikh - St. Petersburg, crashed on October 31, about half an hour after departure, 100 km south of administrative center North Sinai province El Arish city near settlement El-Hasna. There were a total of 217 passengers and seven crew members on the plane; no one survived.

Continuation

Current topic: Emergency

An explosion on board is the most likely cause of the A321 crash, Stratfor experts say

In their opinion, the explosive device was carried in hand luggage

Experts from the private American intelligence and analytical company Stratfor consider the most likely cause of the plane crash over Egypt to be the carrying of an explosive device on board the Airbus A321. This is stated in the organization's published report.

"Although we cannot completely rule out the possibility of an aircraft failure, such an explanation would be unusual given the circumstances of the crash," the report's authors said. According to them, most plane crashes that occur due to failure of aircraft equipment occur during takeoff and landing, when the mechanical stress on board increases. “An airplane rarely breaks down while flying at altitude,” experts note.

The report also states that in the event of an equipment failure, the pilots of the airliner would most likely have been able to maneuver, and the plane would have flown to the ground without any catastrophic consequences.

In addition, analysts consider it unlikely that the plane was shot down by Islamic State militants (a group banned in the Russian Federation) from the Sinai Peninsula. “Although militants in the area were able to use MANPADS to shoot down an Egyptian helicopter and fire rockets at an Israeli aircraft, Flight 9268 was outside the weapon's range,” the report said.

“Given the improbability of alternative scenarios, it appears that the most likely explanation for the plane crash is the presence of an explosive device on board,” the report’s authors conclude. In their opinion, the explosive device was carried in hand luggage.

Earlier, CBS News reported that an American satellite recorded in the infrared spectrum over the Sinai Peninsula at the time of the crash of the Russian A321 in Egypt.

On the morning of October 31, a Russian passenger plane Airbus A321 of Kogalymavia airlines crashed over the Sinai Peninsula during a flight from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. All 224 people on board the plane were killed. On Saturday, the A321 flight recorders were found at the crash site, and on Sunday, experts in Egypt began deciphering them. The IAC reported that the airliner collapsed in the air.

Everything indicates that a technical problem led to the A321 crash, said Egyptian government spokesman Hussam al-Kawish.

“The artificial satellites at the disposal of the United States and Russia have eliminated the possibility of a catastrophe due to a terrorist attack. Everything indicates that the plane crashed due to a technical problem inside,” RIA Novosti quotes him as saying.

Let us remind you that the Airbus-321 aircraft of the Kogalymavia company took off early on Saturday morning from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, over the Sinai Peninsula. There were 217 passengers and seven crew members on board. They all died. The cause of the disaster is not yet clear.

According to some reports, the destruction of the plane occurred while still in the air. Russian transport authorities call it unlikely. No traces of explosives were found on the fragments of the plane.

On Tuesday, an Egyptian medical expert involved in the inspection said the nature of the injuries to the bodies of the A321 passengers on board before impact with the ground.

However, a source at the Center for Forensic Medicine said that a preliminary examination of mine explosive traces on the bodies of the crash victims.

A Pentagon official stated that there was a thermal flash in the sky at the time of the crash of the Russian airliner. The Pentagon spokesman also confirmed that the plane “disintegrated at a very high altitude,” and from satellite data it follows that “some kind of explosion occurred” during the flight.

Later that day, a representative of the Interstate Aviation Committee said that there was information that there was a thermal flash on the A321 plane before the crash.

On the night of Monday to Tuesday, CBS News reported that at the time of the crash of the A321 Kogalymavia aircraft, the American satellite experienced a thermal flash over the Sinai. As the TV channel clarified, one of the reasons could be a bomb, but an explosion in the fuel tank or engine as a result of a mechanical failure is also possible.

Unofficial sources reported that from the recording of conversations between the flight crew and dispatchers, it follows that the situation on board four minutes before the plane disappeared from radar remained, the crew conducted normal negotiations with dispatchers, nothing indicated any problems on board, and the crew also did not report them. The moment the airliner disappears from the radar screens is preceded in the recording by sounds uncharacteristic of a normal flight.

Head of the Investigative Committee of Russia Alexander Bastrykin on Tuesday. The full commission to investigate the causes of the plane crash was at the crash site, where it examined the wreckage of the plane.

The management of Kogalymavia on Monday came out with its version of the cause of the A321 crash in Egypt: the equipment was in good working order, the crew was professional, the incident that occurred in 2001 did not affect the plane, the airliner collapsed from external influences. This version, however, was denied by the Egyptian commission of inquiry. Experts are now discussing the two versions as approximately equally probable.

The general director of the Kogalymavia airline, Alexander Snagovsky, said on Monday that he believes the reason for the Russian Airbus-321 on the Sinai Peninsula is external influence. According to him, an aircraft such as the A321 could not have collapsed in the air due to the failure of any technical systems. The only cause of destruction in the air, according to him, can be mechanical impact, RIA Novosti reports.

“No fatigue crack can develop to a critical size.”

At the same time, Snagovsky emphasized that Kogalymavia excludes human factor and the technical factor as versions of the plane crash.

The day before, we recall, the flight crew of Kogalymavia Airlines published a letter in which they stated that the crashed plane was controlled by experienced pilots, whose actions caused the disaster.

However, this version does not fit with the information received from the flight recorders. A Reuters source at the Egyptian investigation commission said that, according to the first data analyzed, the plane was not exposed to external influences and did not send a distress signal before hitting the ground.

Airline version

The airline's deputy general director for technical and production issues, Andrei Averyanov, expanded the airline's version in more detail: when the Kogalymavia A321 aircraft crashed over the Sinai Peninsula, the aircraft most likely received significant structural damage, and the crew completely lost control of the controls. In addition, in less than a minute, the A321 aircraft slowed down by more than 300 km per hour and decreased altitude by 1.5 km. At the same time, there was not a single attempt to get in touch and report an emergency situation on board.

“During the transition to the crash, the A321 aircraft most likely suffered significant structural damage that prevented it from continuing to fly. And, apparently, in connection with this, at the same moment the catastrophic situation began to develop, the crew completely lost their ability to work, this is what can explain the fact that there was not a single attempt to get in touch and report an emergency situation on board,” he explained.

A survey of the crews who worked on the A321 that crashed in Egypt confirmed that the airliner was in excellent technical condition. As the air carrier noted, over the last five flights there was not a single comment in the logbook from the A321 crew regarding problems with the aircraft.

The airline also said that on October 26, the aircraft's engines underwent a baroscopic test and no problems were identified.

Kogalymavia claims that repairs carried out in 2001 after the plane’s tail touched the runway during landing (then the plane belonged to a Lebanese carrier) could not have been the cause of the disaster, since the deficiencies would have been discovered since then.

“Regarding fatigue cracks, I should note that work to assess fatigue cracks is carried out on aircraft every five years. We carried out such work with all care on the plane, it was just 2014 in March,” said flight director of Kogalymavia airline Alexander Smirnov.

“Airplane design defines airworthiness standards that ensure that no fatigue cracks can develop to a critical size during the inspection interval,” he added.

A terrorist attack is not ruled out

“Let’s wait for the official results of the investigation, and the commission will tell us about its results, I wouldn’t like to engage in speculation now, this is not in my competence,” suggested Smirnov.

Answering the question whether there could have been a terrorist attack, Smirnov said: “Anything could have happened.”

The Kremlin has not ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack, although presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that it was necessary to first wait for the results of the investigation.

Let us remind you that on Saturday, the France-Presse agency, without citing sources, published information that the Sinai ISIS cell took responsibility for the death of the plane with people. There was no confirmation of this information, and the Russian Minister of Transport stated that there was no evidence that the plane was shot down. In addition, the Investigative Committee of Russia opened a case under Art. 263 (violation of flight rules and preparation for them) and under Part 3 of Art. 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (provision of services that do not meet safety requirements).

However, experts do not rule out something else - an explosion on board.

Assumptions

Currently, experts are discussing two versions - the destruction of the plane in the air as a result of a terrorist attack and due to technical problems of the plane.

The former head of the French Bureau of Investigation and Analysis of Civil Aviation Safety, Jean-Paul Troadec, said that, based on the information that is known at the moment, he can conclude that the plane did not fall in a dive.

“Obviously, the plane did not fall at its peak. There are no small fragments, which suggests that it did not fall in a dive. That’s all that can be said at this stage,” Troadek told Belgian publication La Derniere heure.

“The study of the wreckage and data from the flight recorders will quickly determine which hypothesis is more likely: a crime or an accident,” he said.

Allen Bouillard, who investigated aviation accidents in France, told the New York Times that he had little idea what technical problems could lead to the in-flight destruction of such a modern aircraft as the Airbus A321-200. “A mid-air disruption due to a technical failure seems extremely unlikely to me,” he added.

At the same time, the former head of the US National Transportation Safety Board, Mark Rosenker, said that he is more inclined to believe that the cause of the disaster was technology rather than a terrorist attack, citing in favor of his version the fact that the plane was damaged in 2001 year - when landing at high speed in Cairo, the tail touched the runway. Then the board was operated by Middle East Airlines. However, Rosenker did not deny the possibility of a terrorist attack.

President of the Civil Aviation Partner Foundation, Honored Pilot of the USSR Oleg Smirnov, in an interview with the VZGLYAD newspaper, said that he does not rule out both the version of a terrorist attack and the technical one. According to him, it is necessary to check whether the skin was opened during the repair of the aircraft after the accident in 2001: if the repair was limited to replacing the tail, specialists might not have seen the microcracks that had formed on the fuselage. Such microcracks sooner or later lead to tragedy. In addition, Smirnov did not rule out depressurization: for example, an engine explosion occurred, after which the turbine could break through the skin of the aircraft, and the aircraft was torn apart by the air flow.

Initiatives

Meanwhile, Russia's main legislative body continues to discuss measures that could make the country's aviation industry safer. On Saturday, we recall, deputy Alexey Pushkov proposed banning the operation of aircraft over 15 years old, and on Sunday he added that two or three carriers should be left on the market.

Anatoly Vyborny, a member of the State Duma Security Committee, was not so categorical. In an interview with the newspaper VZGLYAD, he expressed the opinion that such restrictions need to be discussed with aviation professionals. He also drew attention to the need to combat the supply of counterfeit spare parts for aircraft.

A member of the State Duma Committee on Transport, Oleg Nilov, took the initiative to introduce a state monopoly on passenger air transportation: “I believe that we need to consider the issue - and I have already made such a proposal - about returning the state monopoly. In any case, those companies that carry out passenger air transportation must be under 100% state control,” Nilov said, noting that Russia has been one of the first in the number of aviation accidents in recent years. “If you count the number of flights and the population, I’m afraid that this will be the first place,” the parliamentarian added.

Nilov recalled that there had already been experience of a state monopoly on air transportation, including in Soviet times. “As an option for a compromise, I propose: 51% of the shares are in the hands of the state, 49% in the hands of private investors and entrepreneurs,” the deputy clarified.

“It will be difficult to do this through some kind of law, amendments to the law. It would be more correct to contact the government with such an initiative, and if it considers this possible, it will either prepare its own regulations, decisions and, if necessary, legislative acts,” he explained to TASS.

A member of the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes, Evgeny Fedorov, expressed the opinion that small airlines, whose fleet consists of three to ten aircraft, cannot ensure full flight safety. “There are companies - three to five to ten aircraft. It is clear that they will not be able to pull out security in full. You need to have several consolidated airlines, like in banking. The strategic line itself is wrong,” he said.

“Over the past year, accidents in the aviation industry have increased by 35%,” the deputy concluded.