Catastrophe over Sinai: photo, reasons and investigation

On the last day of October 1915, over the central part of the Sinai Peninsula, a plane crash took place, killing two hundred and twenty-four people, most of whom were Russian citizens. For the whole history of aviation this was the case of the most mass death of our compatriots aboard the aircraft. The catastrophe over Sinai, the photo of which flew around the world, was in the center of attention of the world community, and its reasons were expressed by various assumptions.

The events of that fateful morning

But before we talk about the versions of what happened, with which numerous reports from the scene of the events were dazzled in those days, we will try to restore the chronology of what happened. It is known that on October 31, an airplane of the Russian airline "Kogalymavia" Airbus A A321-231 flew from the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, located at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, to St. Petersburg.

The plane carried out a charter, that is, an irregular flight. He was chartered by the tourist firm Brisco, and on board were her customers returning from the rest on the Red Sea. Tearing off the runway at 6 hours and 52 minutes and heading for the northern capital of Russia, he after twenty-three minutes of flight suddenly disappeared from the radar screens. It should be noted that before this, there had been no reports of abnormal situations occurring on board, and the disaster over Sinai was unexpected for all.

An urgently organized search group found fragments of a crashed liner scattered over fifteen kilometers in the central part of the peninsula near the city of Nechel. Rescuers were forced to state that none of the passengers and crew could not be saved. Among the dead were seven children. Immediately after the disaster over Sinai, a statement was issued by the terrorist organization IGIL, banned in our country, that it assumes responsibility for what happened.

Airbus A321-231

Here, perhaps, that's all. Now let's see what the airliner was like, who died in the sky over Egypt. Despite the fact that it was released in 1997 and had managed to spend nineteen years in the sky, it was, according to the standards of modern aviation, an unmarried aircraft that had exhausted only forty eight percent of its flying resource. Specialists consider this age to be quite acceptable. Thousands of his peers are flying around the world today. Therefore, the assumption that the catastrophe over the Sinai occurred as a result of the wear of the liner, is hardly grounded.

Journalists who commented on the event drew attention to the fact that over the years of his life the plane repeatedly changed owners and leased. However, this does not give cause for concern. Such a practice has long been established in the field of air transportation and is accepted throughout the world.

Before, during the years of operation of the liner, there were no serious accidents with him, except for the only incident that occurred in November 2001. Then, completing the flight from Beirut to Cairo, and landing in the Egyptian capital, the aircraft was in an abnormal situation - as a result of the pilot's mistake, the nose of the liner was excessively upset, its tail hit the concrete of the runway.

None of the passengers and crew members were injured, and the aircraft's damage was eliminated. Soon his exploitation was resumed and after fourteen years of trouble-free operation it is difficult to assume that the catastrophe in the sky over Sinai has some connection with that incident.

Aircraft Crew

Often, the causes of the tragedies that have taken place in the air are the human factor, that is, the wrong actions of pilots caused by their incompetence or criminal negligence. Therefore, during the investigation, this option was taken into account. However, no claims were presented to the crew.

In addition, the aircraft that day was piloted by experienced pilots. The commander of the ship V. Yu. Nemov and co-pilot S. S. Truhachev flew for their lives a sufficient number of hours, including on this type of aircraft. In addition to the pilots, the crew of the liner also included five flight attendants.

The first assumptions about the causes of what happened

The investigation of the Sinai disaster was carried out by representatives of six states: Egypt, Russia, France, the USA, Germany and Ireland. The most qualified and experienced specialists of these countries took part in its work. The very next day, the decoding of the data contained in the flight recorders found at the scene of the accident was started, and received only minor damages.

The wreckage of the aircraft, scattered over a stretch of more than fifteen kilometers, indicated that the destruction of the airliner was still in the air. This, in turn, pushed the idea of an explosion on board. However, in the beginning of the investigation, the version of the terrorist attack was not yet dominant. As a result of purely technical malfunctions, for example, a fuel tank or lithium batteries could explode. Similar cases took place in flight practice.

Version of the terrorist act

A week later, the first results of the decoding of the recorders became known. According to data provided by the chairman of the International Commission of Inquiry, Ayman al-Muqadd, in the last seconds of the recording, a sharp foreign sound was clearly heard, the origin of which was to be established by a special analysis.

Specifically, the causes of the disaster over Sinai became known on November 16 from the message of the representative of the Russian side Alexander Bortnikov. He said that as a result of the expertise carried out on the wreckage of the aircraft and the passengers' things, traces of an explosive of non-Russian production were found.

They are irrefutable evidence that an improvised explosive device was put into action on board , the power of which was approximately one kilogram in TNT equivalent. After this message, the version of the attack was fully justified.

The next day, the appeal of the Russian Federal Security Service to the world public and citizens of Russia was published, containing a call for assistance in identifying the personalities of terrorists. As a reward for the information contributing to their capture, it indicated the amount of fifty million US dollars.

The position occupied by the Egyptian government

This version of what happened was extremely dissatisfied with the Egyptian government, as it caused serious damage to the country's tourism business. Indeed, almost all of the world's largest airlines suspended flights over the territory of Sinai in those days, until the final clarification of the circumstances of the incident.

Stating that he would take into account the information of Russian experts, the commission of inquiry set up by the Egyptian authorities in December 2015, nevertheless announced that, having conducted a comprehensive study of the circumstances of the case, did not find confirmation of penetration of unauthorized persons on board the aircraft, as well as evidence of committing a terrorist attack.

The opinion of outside observers and experts

It was all the more strange that, according to the US military, their reconnaissance satellite recorded a heat flare in the air at the time of the airbus accident. These observations exclude the missile's entry into the airplane, since in this case its thermal trace would be fixed. The wreck as a result of emergency landing is excluded by the fact that the outbreak was seen in the air, and not on the ground.

The same version is shared by analysts of the private American company Stratfor, specializing in technical expertise. They also acknowledged the most likely cause of the explosion on board, although they did not give a definitive conclusion about its cause.

In November, reports appeared on the pages of the press that specialists had managed to separate the traces of injuries suffered by the victims of the Sinai disaster into two groups - those caused by the fall and those that bear clear signs of an explosion. It was very important. As a result, after identifying the remains of passengers and taking into account which of them was in what place, according to the tickets purchased, it was possible to establish with a sufficiently high degree of reliability the place where the explosive device was laid.

But even after that, the question of what caused the catastrophe over Sinai, whose photos of victims were shocked by the world public, remains open. As already mentioned above, the main enemy of the version of the terrorist attack was the government of Egypt. For him it was extremely unprofitable to admit the truth about why a catastrophe took place over Sinai. The version, which is banned by the Egyptian authorities and almost not covered in local media, nevertheless received a number of indirect confirmations. We give just one example.

What the Egyptian media did not say

According to several foreign news agencies, it is known that immediately after the incident at the airport in Sharm el-Sheikh, the Egyptian authorities carried out a number of detentions of persons suspected of involvement in the disaster. A total of seventeen people were detained. In addition, two more employees were also wanted, who were responsible for scanning passengers' luggage and disappeared without a trace after the accident. This information came from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the country and at first was not classified.

However, after a while, high-ranking government officials issued a categorical refutation, claiming that they did not and had no reason to see the cause of what had happened in the terrorist attack. They invariably continue to talk about the fact that the disaster over Sinai was the result of a technical malfunction of the aircraft, and therefore, was due to the fault of the airline.

Their position can only be explained by the fact that, in case of recognition of the negligence of airport employees or their direct collusion with criminals, as a result of which explosives were carried aboard the aircraft, the fault for the incident will lie on the state. It is clear that such an outcome of the case fraught with payments of compensation to the relatives of the dead and injured airline, as well as the loss of tourists to the resorts of the country and many other negative consequences.

The reaction of the governments of a number of leading states

But nevertheless, the catastrophe over Sinai, the photo of which did not descend in those days from television screens of the whole world, had extremely negative consequences for the Egyptian economy. Already on November 4, the governments of Great Britain and Ireland have forbidden their airlines to fly over Sinai and fly to Sharm El Sheikh from any direction.

The following day, a similar initiative was made by representatives of the US and German aviation authorities. The governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and France did not impose bans, but warned their citizens about the undesirability of flying to Egyptian resorts because of possible attacks by terrorists, as a result of which one of them was a catastrophe over Sinai. The photos of the dead eloquently made every effort to convince themselves of the validity of such warnings, and the flow of tourists on the Red Sea coast was reduced to a minimum.

Suspension of flights from Russia to Egypt

A corresponding reaction followed from the Russian side. It was she who suffered the brunt of the losses, since the victims of the disaster over Sinai, with the exception of five people, were her citizens. In addition to the Russians, on board were four subjects of Ukraine and one citizen of Belarus. Most passengers were residents of St. Petersburg, as well as Leningrad, Pskov and Novgorod regions.

In view of the incident, on November 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the suspension of air communication with Egypt, up to the establishment of an appropriate level of flight safety. The same evening, this order took effect. The only exceptions were flights organized for the export of Russian tourists who had finished their vacation. But even in this case, increased counter-terrorism measures were taken. On board it was possible to take only hand luggage, and all other luggage was delivered separately by planes of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

The task set by the president

In addition to the suspension of flights, a whole series of extraordinary actions was undertaken, the cause of which was the catastrophe over Sinai. The list of the dead was so great that the incident immediately caused a resonance in the broadest layers of society. In response to the indignation of Russians by the actions of terrorists, the President of the Russian Federation, speaking at a meeting on the results of the investigation, set the task of the relevant services to find the perpetrators of the atrocity committed to justice.

Following this, Russian Defense Minister S. Shoigu, while negotiating with the Egyptian President, summing up the investigation, said that the Russian side has data according to which the Sinai disaster was organized by the Vilayat-Sinai terrorist group that is part of the banned in Our country organization of IGIL.

Memory of the deceased

As a sign of nationwide grief about the victims of the terrorist act, which became one of the largest in recent years, on November 1, mourning was declared. In St. Petersburg itself, where most of the dead lived, it lasted three days. In addition, the governor of the city G. Poltavchenko initiated the creation of a memorial in memory of those whose lives were swept away by the disaster over Sinai.

"Preserve the memory of what happened - you will be able to avoid this in the future" - this time-tested truth should serve also in the fight against one of the main problems of the 21st century - terrorism. It was not for nothing that Dmitry Peskov, presidential spokesman, speaking at a meeting with journalists in March, stressed that the order to search for criminals given to Vladimir Putin by the Minister of Defense was unlimited, and their atrocity would never be forgotten.