On October 30, Airbus 321-231 of Kogalymavia airlines safely completed two flights on the route Sharm el-Sheikh - Samara - Sharm el-Sheikh. The handing over crew, PIC Dmitry Zhigalkovich, and co-pilot Yuri Yushko do not make any comments about the aircraft. Already in the early morning of October 31, the plane will have two more regular flights: Sharm el-Sheikh - St. Petersburg - Sharm el-Sheikh. The following crew is already on board: experienced 48-year-old Valery Nemov, who has flown over 12,000 hours, and 45-year-old co-pilot Sergei Trukhachev, a former military pilot who served in the Chechen campaign.
217 passengers will be waiting for them on board, most of them are St. Petersburg residents, many returning home with their entire families from a long-awaited vacation in Egypt. At 03:50:06 local time (06:50 Moscow time), flight 7K-9268 takes off from Sharm el-Sheikh, after which, following the air corridor along the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, it begins to climb.
The plane, bypassing the Sinai Peninsula, will have to arrive in St. Petersburg at 12:10 local time, on a regular Saturday afternoon in October, among dozens of other domestic and international flights listed on the Pulkovo board. But neither then, nor after several delays that were displayed on the board, the long-awaited flight 9268 never returned to its homeland.
A few days after the disaster in the skies over Egypt, Flightradar will release data on the last flight of the A321 over the Sinai. According to the report published on the website, the plane took off safely and began to gain altitude, moving parallel to the coast. A few minutes after the liner turned deeper into the peninsula, its altitude began to drop sharply by 6,000 feet. Communication with the plane is lost. The first media reports that the Kogalymavia Airbus plane disappeared from radar began to appear only at 10:18 Moscow time. Short news reports vary significantly: according to the information they contain, there were from 207 to 224 people on board. Some reports say the plane went missing near Larnaca in Cyprus.
Flight 9268 Sharm el-Sheikh - St. Petersburg, operated by Airbus 321 Kogalymavia, took off at 6:21 Moscow time and disappeared from radar screens after 23 minutes, there were 217 passengers and seven crew members on board, reports the Federal Air Transport Agency.
Moments count - two minutes later news appears from Arab media, reporting that a Russian plane crashed in the central part of the Sinai Peninsula. But the data is still scarce and not supported by official confirmation. Hope remains. At 10:42 Reuters and Sky News publish the first reports refuting the plane crash. Publication sources claim that the crew of the missing plane made contact in Turkey. Flightradar does not confirm the fall either, specifying that the airliner sharply decreased in altitude before disappearing from the radar.
The Federal Air Transport Agency reports that they are trying to contact the flight that disappeared from radar. At 11:44 on the Pulkovo online board there is still information that the flight’s arrival from Sharm el-Sheikh is delayed (from 12:10 to 12:20). But already closer to 12, citing sources in the Federal Air Transport Agency, most media outlets publish information about the crash of an airliner over the Sinai Peninsula. In Pulkovo, where by that time the information about the arrival had disappeared from the display, the emergency headquarters began operational work, and the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations was preparing two aircraft to be sent to Egypt. Later, the department decides to send five special aircraft to Egypt.
Search teams discovered the crash site among the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula. The wreckage of the airliner was scattered over 13 kilometers.
The search operation took place in difficult conditions: North Sinai is a closed zone, and for a year now the Egyptian army has been conducting a large-scale operation there against militants of an extremist group associated with ISIS (the group’s activities are prohibited in Russia by decision of the Supreme Court. - Prim. ed.). It was the Egyptian military, patrolling the territory, who were the first to discover the wreckage of the airliner. The plane crashed in the En-Nahal mountain range, a deserted, waterless and deserted place. According to clarified and officially confirmed information, there were 224 people on board the plane, including seven crew members. According to the Federal Air Transport Agency, among the passengers on the plane there were 192 adults and 25 children. They all died.
Dear Amalia, 28 years ago you gave the world a wonderful boy. Every mother dreams of such a son and every girl dreams of such a reliable and loving man nearby. A year ago, photographs of all the dead were published, I immediately remembered Armen’s face, it attracts the eye with its kind and pure smile, this is the face of a purposeful and very decent young man. I didn’t know him, but I’m incredibly sorry for Armen. Such boys were obliged to live and give the world beautiful children. But, unfortunately, another world, black and evil, took his life. Strength and health to you. Thank you for such a son. Insanely sorry... In loving memory of Armen and happy heavenly birthday. (Tatyana Svetlova, St. Petersburg) - such letters, a year after the tragedy, continue to be received by the relatives of those killed in the terrible plane crash over Sinai.
On October 26, a few days before the plane crash, Armen Vishnev, a native of the city of Pushkin, who served in the Federal Customs Service, turned 27 years old. Armen flew to Egypt to rest, in one of his last messages he asked his mother not to be bored, because the separation would not be long, he promised to bring a magnet or, as a joke, even a whole camel.
A year after the tragedy, Amalia carefully preserves all the photographs and messages of her son. Concerned residents of other regions of Russia and dozens of other loved ones of the victims of the plane crash help her to honor the memory and overcome the grief of loss. The tragedy united more than 36 thousand people online. Through the efforts of St. Petersburg residents, the Flight 9268 charitable foundation was created, which now provides support to people who lost loved ones in the disaster over Sinai.
The main goal for which we have united is to perpetuate the memory of our relatives in those things that we are able to accomplish: creating a memorial and temple, preserving the memories of our loved ones, helping the families of the victims who need financial, legal and psychological support. Our foundation is not just an attempt to rally around a common cause. This is a protest against terrorism, murder, cruelty and injustice. A big journey begins with a small step. And we are taking this step all together - this is precisely the goal set for ourselves by people whose lives were divided by the tragedy into before and after the disaster.
Fund group on social networks has long become a kind of spontaneous book of memory, where you can find out the latest information about the progress of the investigation into the tragedy, again see photos of all those who did not return home from the ill-fated flight, and also provide all possible assistance to family and friends.
And it’s not just about money: any support is valuable, because even after a year, practice shows: time does not heal, and a long investigation and difficult bureaucratic procedures associated with the payment of compensation only aggravate the already ongoing pain of loss.
The tragedy cut short the lives of entire families: Olga and Yuri Shein and three of their children died in the disaster. The whole country from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok was shocked to the core by the love story of Alexandra Chernova and Evgeny Yavsin who were on board the A321: Evgeny specially saved money to take Sasha to Egypt and propose to her there. 
And dozens of other life-long stories that were so unfairly and suddenly ended on that ill-fated October morning. Most of the passengers of the crashed A321 were residents of the North-West of Russia, mainly from St. Petersburg, Leningrad, Novgorod and Pskov regions. Also on board were four citizens of Ukraine and one citizen of Belarus. Flight 9268" of Irina Zakharova, the remains, which are now stored in the crematorium on Shafirovsky Prospekt, are not subject to examination. However, families still have hope of receiving fragments of the bodies of their dead relatives: in Egypt, after the completion of the main stage of the investigation, new remains were discovered, they are now being studied.
The report of the international commission investigating the crash of the Russian A321 over the Sinai has not yet been made public: according to a source in the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation, experts will talk about the preliminary results of their work (and this is a year after the investigation) “within 60 days.”
Certain technical analyzes are now being carried out, after which a preliminary report will be made public, a representative of the Egyptian Ministry of Aviation told the media on October 26.
Let us remind you that representatives from six countries are taking part in the investigation into the causes of the disaster: Egypt, Russia, as well as specialists from France, Germany, Ireland and the USA. Its progress in accordance with the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is supervised by the Egyptian aviation authorities. 
One of the first versions of the disaster was the assumption that the Russian plane could have been shot down by a missile fired by militants operating in the North Sinai region. However, this assumption was almost immediately refuted by experts as untenable. For a long time, experts worked on another probable cause of the crash of the Kogalymavia airliner - a version of technical problems. This was announced on the day of the crash by the operational services of Egypt following a preliminary inspection of the wreckage of the plane. At the initial stage of the investigation, Russian experts were also inclined towards this version.
Representatives of Kogalymavia (Metrojet trademark) were the first to refute it: already on November 2, the airline’s press secretary, Alexander Smirnov, ruled out a technical malfunction and pilot error as the causes of the disaster and announced an “external influence” on the airliner. He stressed that the aircraft, which the airline owned under lease, was 100% ready to fly and that its crew was “very experienced.” The company representative supported his speech with certificates received by the airline at the beginning of 2015. He also stated that the plane's engine was checked on October 26, five days before the crash.
On November 7, the IAC reported that until the recording on the recorders stopped, the flight was proceeding as normal; no information about failures of the aircraft’s systems and components was recorded.
At a meeting in the Kremlin on November 16, the head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, officially announced for the first time that the cause of the crash was a terrorist attack. Versions about third-party interference with links to various sources were previously published in foreign and Russian media. “We can definitely say that this is a terrorist act,” Bortnikov said, adding that traces of foreign-made explosives were found on the debris and things. - According to our experts, an improvised explosive device with a power of up to 1 kg in TNT equivalent went off on board the aircraft during the flight, which resulted in the aircraft falling apart in the air, which explains the scattering of parts of the aircraft fuselage over a long distance.
Bortnikov explained that the conclusions were made by specialists after a thorough examination of personal belongings, luggage of passengers and parts of the crashed airliner.
It was initially believed that the explosive device was planted under the passenger seat of 30A or 31A. However, in September 2016, data from the commission were made public, according to which the explosion occurred in the tail section, in the compartment for oversized luggage. A timed bomb was hidden among the baby strollers. Experts came to this conclusion after analyzing the layout of the collected fragments of the A321 in the hangar at Cairo airport. Due to the explosion, the plane lost its tail section, after which it went into an uncontrolled dive.
The investigation into the tragedy is progressing very slowly, and all the circumstances of what happened are still unknown. The Egyptian cell of the Islamic State group banned in Russia almost immediately took responsibility for the crash of the Russian plane. Airport employees could have carried the explosive device on board - numerous evidence of the weak level of security in the air harbor immediately after the tragedy flooded the Internet: many tourists said that for a small bribe they calmly carried bags with things through all the security cordons, and no one inspected them. However, the Egyptian side for a long time insisted on the version of a technical malfunction, refusing to acknowledge the possibility of a terrorist attack on board the liner. In December 2015, the Technical Investigation Committee issued a statement saying that Cairo had found no signs of terrorist involvement in the Airbus 321 crash. It was not until February 2016 that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi admitted for the first time that a Russian plane had crashed in the skies above. Sinai was a terrorist attack. The head of state stated this at the presentation of a report on the country’s development until 2030.
On August 30, 2016, it was announced that Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, who was allegedly the organizer of the terrorist attack, had been killed in Aleppo, Syria.
Air traffic with Egypt, which was stopped immediately after the A321 crash, has not yet been restored. In accordance with the official commentary of the Russian Ministry of Transport, the situation will not change until all concerns in the field of aviation security are eliminated.
A decision to resume air traffic between Russia and Egypt is possible only after all concerns in the field of aviation and transport security have been eliminated. It is worth noting that the Egyptian side has made significant progress in resolving these issues and the interaction between the two countries is quite constructive, the department noted on October 25.
The Garden of Memory", which will be located on Rumbolovskaya Mountain in Vsevolozhsk, will be completed and fresh flowers will bloom here. A corridor of slabs on which, in accordance with the design of the monument, will be the names of all those killed in the A321 plane crash, as well as metal structures in the form of pipes on which the wind will play, anyone who drives along the Road of Life will see it.
On Monday, October 31, a memorial service for the victims of the A321 crash in the skies over the Sinai Peninsula will be held at St. Isaac's Cathedral. In memory of those who never returned home to their family and friends, the cathedral bell will ring 224 times.
The biggest disaster in the history of our civil aviation occurred this morning. 224 people - passengers and crew of the flight Sharm el-Sheikh - St. Petersburg - crashed in Egypt, on the Sinai Peninsula. People were flying back from vacation with their families. 27 children among the dead. The Egyptian Prime Minister said that 129 bodies have been found so far. Experts are working on a "black box".
This is the first evidence of a plane crash in Sinai - photographs published by an Egyptian television channel. The first - for the whole day. Before this, there was not a single photograph, not a single video recording, even the shortest one. Towards evening, the first military helicopters carrying the remains of disaster victims from Sinai landed at the Egyptian Air Force Kabrit air base, a little over a hundred kilometers from Cairo. Ambulances - a long line of cars with lights flashing - transport them from the airbase to the Cairo morgue. Before nightfall, the bodies of almost all the dead were delivered to the Egyptian capital. From there they will be sent to Russia, to St. Petersburg.
“Since this tragic incident, our countries have been working in close contact. The President and the government of Egypt expressed condolences in this regard and offered to do everything possible to, firstly, conduct a joint investigation, and secondly, help in transporting the bodies of our citizens to their homeland ", said the Russian Ambassador to Egypt Sergei Kirpichenko.
Airbus Flight 9268 flew for only 23 minutes. Much longer - several hours after it disappeared from radar - conflicting information about the fate of the liner came. It was not immediately possible to create a more or less clear picture of what happened in the skies over Sinai.
Sharm el-Sheikh airport, 5 hours 51 minutes local time (6.51 Moscow time). The Kogalymavia airbus, a charter airline also known under the Metrojet brand, has taken off and is heading for St. Petersburg. There were almost no empty seats left. An experienced crew commander - 12 thousand flight hours, a third of which were on an Airbus 321. Almost immediately after takeoff, he discovered some problems on board, contacted the ground, reported the malfunctions, and asked for permission to land at the nearest airfield. At this point the session ended, and the Airbus did not make contact again. By 7:14 am Moscow time, the plane was lost by radar.
"At 7.14 I was supposed to establish a communication session with Larnaca, the Republic of Cyprus. Radio communication did not take place with the plane, it was lost. The aircraft's mark also disappeared from the radio radars of air traffic control services. There were 217 passengers and 7 crew members on board the plane, mostly citizens Russia," said Sergei Izvolsky, press secretary of the Federal Air Transport Agency.
Of the 217 passengers, 27 were children. Families were returning from a holiday in Sharm.
Judging by data from the Internet resource Flytradar, the last thing the earth recorded was that the plane dropped about two kilometers in altitude a minute before disappearing from the screens. The speed also dropped sharply: from almost 750 kilometers per hour, first to 350, and then to 170 kilometers per hour! This is the last thing the transponder transmitted, and these numbers are beyond critical. A large airliner simply cannot stay in the air at such a low speed. Moreover, according to witnesses who observed the crash of the Airbus, its engine seemed to be on fire.
The plane had already crashed - it fell in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, 35 kilometers from the city of El-Arish, and the press and news agencies continued to pour out contradictory messages. Someone immediately declared the plane crashed. Then information came that he allegedly got in touch again. Then all the confusing references to Egyptian dispatchers appeared, who allegedly claimed that they had handed over the Airbus to their Turkish colleagues. But this information was not confirmed either.
Closer to noon, it became clear that the plane did not leave Egyptian airspace. The prime minister of this country canceled all trips, called an emergency meeting and announced that the plane had crashed after all. A state of emergency has been declared in Sinai. And finally, in the afternoon, it was officially announced: the wreckage had been found.
“We have sent a working group of the Ministry of Civil Aviation to the scene of the crash. It will conduct an investigation, this is a standard procedure. Of course, we are in constant contact with the Russian ambassador,” said Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail.
Those who were the first to see the crash site with their own eyes conveyed news that finally buried hope: the liner was completely destroyed, there was no chance of finding survivors. After another half hour, rescuers began to remove the bodies of the dead from the rubble. Search efforts were complicated by the difficult mountainous terrain and the fact that the fallen airliner was literally scattered around the area.
An Egyptian security officer described a terrible scene to Reuters: "I am witnessing a tragic scene. There are many dead bodies lying on the ground, many of them fastened with seat belts in their seats. The plane is split into two parts. The first - a small tail part - is burned, the second - the large front part crashed into the rock. We have already recovered 100 bodies, the rest are still under the rubble. We heard dozens of phones that belonged to the dead ringing, our officers collected them in a bag."
The crashed Airbus 321 was in operation for about 19 years - this is quite acceptable in civil aviation; another question is how the aircraft was maintained. This particular aircraft served for several years in airlines in the countries of the Middle East region: Lebanon, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria. The Russian Kogalymavia acquired it in 2012.
Experts are looking into the causes of the tragedy, but photographs of the people remain. Photos of those who flew from Egypt, returned from vacation on flight 9268 and, before takeoff, managed to leave publications on social networks with the following caption, for example: “Hello, Peter, goodbye, Egypt. We are flying home.”
Exactly two years have passed since the death of 224 people over Sinai. The vast majority of those killed were Russian citizens. The FSB of the Russian Federation, and after it the Egyptian authorities, recognized the tragic incident as a terrorist attack. However, its perpetrators have not yet been found. It remains unclear who ordered this terrible crime.
Exactly two years ago, on October 31, 2015, the most massive plane crash in terms of the number of deaths occurred in the entire history of Russia.
On this day, an Airbus A321-231 airliner of the Russian airline Kogalymavia took off from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and headed for St. Petersburg. The crew of the airliner was operating a charter flight and was taking Russian tourists home after a vacation.
The plane climbed calmly along the Gulf of Aqaba and would soon cross the Sinai Peninsula to enter European airspace. However, at the 23rd minute of the flight, communication between ground services and the aircraft was interrupted.
It soon became clear that the Airbus A321-231 crashed to the ground in the central part of the Sinai Peninsula and was completely destroyed.
The wreckage of the aircraft was scattered over 13 km. All 224 people on board the plane were killed.
At the time of the death of the airliner, there were seven crew members and 217 passengers. Of these, four were Ukrainians, one was Belarusian, and the rest were Russian citizens. Among them was Alexander Kopylov, deputy head of Pskov and deputy of the local legislative assembly.
According to the Federal Air Transport Agency, the oldest passenger was 77 years old, and the youngest victim of the tragedy was 10-month-old Darina Gromova.
Shortly before the tragic incident, her mother Tatyana published a photo of the child on a page on the VKontakte social network. The photo shows the girl standing on the windowsill of an airport window with her back to the viewer. She looks at the planes on the ground.
Tatyana Gromova captioned the photo: “The most important passenger.” This photograph was later circulated by many Russian and world media and became a symbol of the Sinai disaster.
Darina's mother and father also died as a result of the plane crash.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as the leaders of many countries in Europe and the world, expressed condolences to the victims. The day after the plane crashed, mourning was declared in Russia.
However, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published three cartoons on the topic of the disaster, which caused a negative reaction from the Russian Foreign Ministry and the State Duma. In response, the French Foreign Ministry stated that “in France, journalists freely express their opinions,” while “it does not always coincide with the official position of the French authorities.”
“There were no questions about the car”
Soon after the incident, various versions of what happened began to be put forward.
Almost immediately, the hypothesis that the plane crashed due to a pilot error was dismissed. The crashed Airbus was controlled by experienced pilots, and the crew commander, 48-year-old Valery Nemov, had flown over 12 thousand hours, of which more than 3860 were on the Airbus A321.
However, details of the aircraft’s operation soon became known, and it turned out that it was far from new. It was released in the spring of 1997 and made its first flight on May 9. After this, the aircraft was transferred to the American company International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC), which by May 27 leased it to the Lebanese airline Middle East Airlines (MEA), which had owned it for six years.
On June 2, 2003, already under tail number TC-OAE, the airliner was leased to the Turkish airline Onur Air. This structure later sub-leased the aircraft to Saudi Arabian Airlines, and from July 30 to September 29, 2010 to Syrian Cham Wings Airlines. By the spring of 2012, the TC-OAE board returned to ILFC, and by March 30, 2012, it was leased to the Russian Kogalymavia.
On April 30 of the same 2012, it was bought from ILFC by the Dutch airline AerCap, which re-delivered this airliner to the Russian Kogalymavia. The Russian airline, in turn, has already been operating under the Metrojet brand since May 1, 2012.
During the long service of the aircraft, an unpleasant incident occurred from a safety point of view. On November 16, 2001, he was flying passenger flight ME 306 on the route Beirut - Cairo and during landing at the airport in the Egyptian capital, the pilots raised his nose too high, as a result of which the tail dropped so low that it hit the ground.
None of the 88 people on board the plane (81 passengers and 7 crew members) were injured then, and the airliner itself returned to passenger routes after undergoing repairs. This information was confirmed by representatives of Kagalymavia, assuring that the aircraft passed all the necessary checks and technical tests on time.
On the eve of departure, the ill-fated flight underwent maintenance, and the receiving crew had no questions about the car.
Interrupted message
An investigation into the causes of the tragedy was launched by several large structures from around the world, since Egypt is a very popular tourist destination among citizens of many countries.
The investigation was carried out by the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee, the French Bureau of Civil Aviation Safety Investigation and Analysis, the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation, the Irish Air Accident Investigation Department, and the US National Transportation Safety Board.
At the same time, in accordance with international law, general management was carried out by Egyptian investigators, since the incident occurred in the airspace of that country. Already on the first of November, the previously found “black boxes” from the lost liner were deciphered.
Meanwhile, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened criminal cases under Articles 263 and 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Violation of traffic safety rules and operation of railway, air, sea and inland water transport and the subway” and “Production, storage, transportation or sale of goods and products, execution works or provision of services that do not meet safety requirements").
On November 16, the head of the FSB of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bortnikov, said that the disaster occurred as a result of a terrorist attack - a homemade explosive device with a capacity of up to 1 kg of TNT went off.
This became clear after traces of an explosive not made in Russia were found on the wreckage of the plane and the belongings of passengers.
And the next day, Russian security forces turned to the Russian and international community for assistance in identifying the terrorists. A reward of $50 million has been offered for information leading to the arrest of the criminals.
Egyptian law enforcement officials did not recognize the tragedy as a terrorist attack for some time; they did so only in February 2016.
Be that as it may, already in November 2015, the Russian authorities decided to completely interrupt air traffic with this Arab country until the situation in the field of aviation security is normalized.
At the same time, the remaining Russian tourists at that time were taken out of Egypt upon the end of their tourist packages, but only hand luggage was allowed on board the planes, and luggage was delivered separately, on special flights of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
The UK and German airlines also interrupted flights with the Egyptian state, and France, the Netherlands and Belgium warned their citizens against flying to Sharm el-Sheikh. In addition, Turkish Airlines announced the cancellation of night flights to Sharm el-Sheikh.
Customers not identified
Meanwhile, the victims in the disaster case filed a class action lawsuit against the tour operator, Kogalymavia airline and insurance companies for a total amount of about €1.4 billion. This is the first example of a class action lawsuit for such a serious amount in Russian history.
And although the involvement of Kagalymavia employees in the incident over Sinai is not confirmed by facts, in the spring of 2016, the Federal Air Transport Agency banned domestic and international flights of this airline.
According to the most frequently voiced version, the Sinai branch of the terrorist organization ISIS * “Wilayat Sinai” (both organizations are banned in Russia) is behind the terrorist attack. Its members accepted responsibility for this crime shortly after the fact.
However, there are other points of view. A number of experts believe that the Qatari organization Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (an ISIS cell) could be behind the terrorist attack. The US CIA also announced her trace in the tragedy.
Be that as it may, after the death of the plane, Russian aviation began to intensify air strikes against targets of various Islamist organizations in Syria. For the first time, Russian strategic aviation was involved in raids on the targets of ISIS and other extremists.
However, the names of the specific perpetrators of the terrorist attack have not yet been established.
And on October 28, 2017, a monument to the victims of the disaster was unveiled at the Serafimovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg.
In addition, among St. Petersburg residents there is an idea to erect a monument to 10-month-old Darina Gromova, which the famous sculptor Zurab Tsereteli has already promised to do for free.
Vladimir Vashchenko
* terrorist group banned in the Russian Federation
On the morning of October 31, 2015, it became known that a plane of the Russian airline Kogalymavia, flying from the Egyptian Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, had disappeared over the Sinai Peninsula. There were 224 people on board. At first, the wording was cautious - “no contact”, “disappeared from radar screens” - no one wanted to believe that we were talking about a plane crash, which was destined to become the worst in the history of domestic aviation.
On the anniversary of the death of the A321 airliner over the Sinai Peninsula, Izvestia recalls everything that is known about the disaster to date and pays tribute to the victims of the crash.
The death of A321: the beginning
On the same day, October 31, 2015, fragments of a fallen airliner are discovered in the desert - when they fell to the ground, they were scattered over a radius of 40 km.
After the first reports of the plane's death were received in the media, rescuers were forced to turn off the passengers' phones that survived the impact with the ground - the relatives of the passengers on board were still trying to call their loved ones.
Of the 217 passengers and seven crew members, none survived - in such a terrible disaster this was impossible.
Darina Gromova
However, the true symbol of the tragedy was Darina Gromova, who died in a plane crash, whose photograph quickly spread throughout the world’s media. She was 10 months old.
She became the youngest victim of the terrorist attack, but far from the only child on board the crashed plane: in total, according to the Federal Air Transport Agency, there were 25 children and another 192 adult passengers on board the plane. Most of them were residents of the northwestern part of Russia.
The commander of the plane was 48-year-old Valery Nemov, who by that time had flown more than 12 thousand hours, almost 4 thousand of them on Airbus A321 aircraft. The co-pilot was 45-year-old Sergei Trukhachev, whose flight time was 5,641 hours. Flight attendants Valentina Martsevich, Andrey Belomestnov, Irina Olaru, and Alexey Filimonov worked in the aircraft cabin.
Terrorist attack
As soon as the death of the airliner becomes obvious, journalists and experts express the first versions of what happened. The most common ones sound first - piloting error, technical malfunction of the aircraft. It becomes known that several years before the incident, the tail of the plane was damaged while landing in Cairo - after that the plane underwent repairs, but the information quickly spreads across the media.
Airline officials issued a statement that the plane was fully operational. They are the first to voice the version that it required external influence to destroy it. She doesn't receive much support - it's hard to believe and probably too scary.
But on November 16, the head of the FSB, Vladimir Bortnikov, officially confirmed the version of a bomb planted on board the plane. This information is also confirmed by British intelligence data. A few days before this, on November 6, flights of Russian and some world airlines to Egypt were completely suspended.
Place 31A
On November 7, it became known that when deciphering the flight recorders, an incomprehensible noise was heard in the last seconds of the recording. Until then, pilot negotiations are taking place as normal. Afterwards, the plane begins to sharply lose the altitude gained in the half hour that has passed since takeoff.
On November 17, immediately after the FSB confirmed the version of the terrorist attack, Russia appealed to the world community with a request for assistance in identifying the terrorists involved in the destruction of the plane. A reward of $50 million was promised for information that could help apprehend the criminals. Later, information appears about the detention of two employees of Sharm el-Sheikh airport. They are suspected of helping to smuggle the bomb on board the plane. However, the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Minister of Civil Aviation of Egypt deny this information.
Russia, Egypt, France, Germany, Ireland, the USA, as well as representatives of Airbus Industries are participating in the investigation into the causes of the disaster.
On November 18, the Dabiq magazine, which claims to be the official news organ of the terrorist group ISIS banned in Russia, publishes an article allegedly describing the process of creating a device placed on board an airplane - according to the publication, it was made using a soda can.
Egypt is creating its own special commission to investigate the plane crash. In December 2015, she announced the completion of the preliminary report, which she sent to all participants in the investigation. It eliminates the possibility of unauthorized access to the aircraft.
In February 2016, the country's President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi stated that the cause of the disaster was a terrorist attack - Egypt for the first time officially recognizes this fact.
At the beginning of September this year, the commission completed laying out the fragments of the crashed plane - as a result, it was possible to determine the point from which the destruction of the plane began. According to the examination, the explosion occurred in the area of rows 30–31. Presumably, the point of the explosion was location 31A. The power of the explosive device was 1 kg of TNT equivalent.
The investigation into the disaster has not yet been completed - the international commission of inquiry continues its work, in addition, the Main Directorate for Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation continues the investigation, the press service of the department reported this on Monday, October 31.
Consequences
Security checks at Egypt's airports followed shortly after the crash and revealed problems with air travel safety. The Russian side stated that flights will not be restored until all the shortcomings are eliminated, and it is not known exactly what kind of shortcomings we are talking about. Egypt responded by stating its readiness to comply with the requirements of the Ministry of Transport, but the country's authorities noted that this would take time.
The possible resumption of flights to Egypt has subsequently been reported several times, but none has yet been confirmed. According to experts, air traffic will not be restored before the spring of 2017.
Flight 9268: Garden of Memory
In September of this year, the competition for the design of a monument in memory of the victims ended in St. Petersburg. It was the “Garden of Memory” project - at the request of the family members of the victims, the image of the plane and other direct reminders of the disaster will not be used when creating the memorial. Instead, it is planned to plant 224 trees in the garden - according to the number of those killed in the disaster. The memorial was laid on October 30, 2016 on Rumbolovskaya Mountain in Vsevolozhsk, Leningrad Region.
The victims of the disaster are remembered not only in Russia: in Egypt, on October 30, a funeral procession was held in memory of the tragedy. Residents of Sharm el-Sheikh, the country's Minister of Civil Aviation Sherif Fakhti, the Russian Ambassador to Cairo Sergei Kirpichenko, and deputies of the Egyptian parliament, accompanied by the beat of drums, laid flowers at a poster with the names of everyone who boarded the airliner on flight 9268 from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg.
“On behalf of the entire political leadership of the Arab Republic of Egypt and the government of the country, allow me to express my sincere condolences to the families of the victims and honor their memory. We are extremely sorry for what happened and mourn. Sharm el-Sheikh and all of Egypt will never forget the victims of this flight,” said the head of the country’s aviation ministry, Sherif Fathi.
Commemorative events will also be held in 13 regions of Russia, whose residents died in the plane crash. Memorial services for the victims will be held in churches, and a worship cross will be illuminated at the Holy Trinity Izmailovsky Cathedral in St. Petersburg (where 147 of the 224 victims of the disaster lived).
