Russia’s Metrojet Aircraft Broke into Pieces in Midair

The Russian Metrojet Airbus A321 aircraft that crashed on Saturday morning in Sinai broke into pieces in midair, a senior Russian aviation official said today. The crash killed all 224 people aboard Flight 9268. Footage from the scene showed mangled wreckage from the plane spilled over a largely flat, barren landscape.

“Disintegration of the fuselage took place in the air, and the fragments are scattered around a large area (about 20 square kilometers),” Victor Sorochenko, executive director of Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee, told journalists. (CNN, 1 November)

Peter Goelz, a CNN aviation analysts and former managing director of U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, told the network that the catastrophic failure in the plane could have been caused by maintenance problem. “It could have been a center fuel tank that might have exploded,” Goelz said.

Air traffic control recordings don’t show any distress call, Egyptian Minister of Civil Aviation Hossam Kamel said today.

“There was absolutely nothing abnormal before the plane crashed,” Kamel said. “It suddenly disappeared from the radar.”

Islamic State Sinai Province, an ISIL affiliate, on Saturday claimed responsibility for the crash of the Flight 9268. But Egyptian and Russian officials dismissed the claim. It is not known, however, if the investigators have ruled out a terrorist act, like the explosion of a bomb during the flight.

Photo credit: A piece of Russia’s Metrojet Flight 9268 found among the wreckage of the Airbus A321 aircraft; Saturday 31 October 2015, Sinai Peninsula (Twitter)