This tragedy appears entirely consistent with Al Qaeda's purported aim to disrupt elections in countries they have deemed hostile to Islam. The reported facts that one plane was destined for Putin's vacation spot and that this occurred five days ahead of elections in Chechnya seem to clearly indicate this was done by their hand.

The Olympic games seemingly have had no serious threats to report. Perhaps this is because Al Qaeda is not looking to terrorize every nation indiscriminately, but is targeting specific nations in specific ways. Countries involved with the Iraq occupation, countries such as Indonesia and the Phillipines that have been hostile to the spread of Islam, and Russia which has been a longstanding enemy to the rise of theorcratic Islam.

Once again, the Russian people and the U.S. find themselves to be allies in a fight against a brutal adversary. It seems fairly obvious that we may expect a terrorist attempt in the days preceeding our election. I feel a kinship with the loss the Russians have experienced. I hope the alliance extends beyond a victory over Al Qaeda.

These were two different class of jets, (think DC-10 single class cabin and 757, 3 class cabin). They have different types of engines. I'm thinking deliberate fuel contamination.

Isn't it possible that both airliners squawked hijack and were both immediately destroyed by Russian security services, possibly by fighters in the air, possibly by other means? Isn't it even likely, given the Russian approach to terrorism in the past?

Assassinating Putin a few days before the Chechen elections would have been a huge coup for AQ. I can't help but assume that that was the intent of the operation (if it in fact was one).

I think chances that a Russian fighter jet downed either of the planes is slim, given that the planes crashed at almost the same time, and within a very very short time of any warnings being processed. With all due respect to Russia's airforce, I don't think it has the ability to respond that quickly to such an unorthodox form of attack, especially as the planes were both well away from Moscow when they were downed.

Now, if the planes had been about to hit the Kremlin, that might be another matter...

Also, I'm uncomfortable with the al-Qaeda references in the comments. It seems pretty clear that the most likely culprits for the attacks are Chechen terrorists. Although in some instances they do have some quite strong links to al-Qaeda to simply label them al-Qaeda is to oversimplify, and mislead. If we misunderstand this conflict, we have no chance of making any meaningful progess toward ending it.

According to "Aviation Safety Network".

There’s been about 60 "hull losses" (grim measurement!) of the 923+ TU-154 built since its introduction in 1968 for total fatalities of more than 2,300+.

Losses apparently spiked with 15 "hull losses" occurring in the 2 1/2 years between 06/02 -11/04, following the breakup of the Soviet Union and presumably the loss of central standardized Soviet safety (albeit lax) regulations.

Most losses were Aeroflot's but there were others attributable to various Former Soviet and Client State's airlines.

I have seen Aeroflot flying officers take a shot of vodka before they board their flight and have noticed that at some airports "over there" that "local VFR/IFR flight rules" are viewed by some flying officers as guides more than requirements.

I’m not discounting anything yet, but I'm still in the "Never attribute to Malice that which can be explained by stupidity (insert""human error" or "proper safety procedures") mode at this time, absent more specific information.

Regardless, it would take a terrorist to even get me ON a TU-154 today!

Assassinating Putin would mean utter destruction to people who perpetrate it. Destruction would be indiscrimenate and final. Nobody is that stupid.

if anybody wants me to translate a link in russian, or verify a translation, please post it here...

Jim in Texas:
I agree that a single plane down in Russia is less likely to be a result of terrorism than a single plane down in the US. But two planes went down. Catastrophic results from mass stupidity are usually not so well coordinated. Is there something I'm missing?

Andy Young, you don't think the old Soviet-era homeland defense SAM network is still at least partially operational?

If the planes were both just taking off, I'd have thought more along the lines of a stinger, bad weather (down draft/straight line winds) but they were 450 miles apart. The only common denominator is where they took off from -- and where they were both refueled/serviced.

Things I'd like to check:

1) maintenance recs of both planes, and did the same folks do the same things on both planes?

2) what was the weather like?

3) at what point did they depart from their flight paths? Was it minutes before impact, or was the flight unsteady from the beginning?

4) DNA proof that the guys at the controls were who they were supposed to be....and a head count to make sure there were no "extra" passengers.

The problem with the contaminated fuel theory is that the chances of the same batch of fuel causing the destruction of two aircraft at nearly the same time is astronomically small. Moreover, a contaminated fuel line wouldn't cause a mid-air explosion but would cause engine failure. There would have been more than enough time for the pilots to notify local ATC of their situation.

At this point, I can't think of an explanation other than terrorism that makes much sense in this case.

Tomorrowist,
Dunno, I couldn’t find any corollary but even a quick scan of the available data show several crashes within one to several days of each other.

That’s why I initially thought one A/C might have turn back for a problem and caused a mid-air.

Right now everything is as likely as not, but I always tend towards the conventional.

Can a MANPAD bring down large military or even commercial aircraft?

That’s been an on-going point of discussion since the 80’s and became a big point of discussion beginning in the 90’s with some surprising results.

MANPADs (MANPAD: A man-portable surface-to-air missile, although I’ve seen the “D” defined as “Defense”) have been around since the Vietnam War. Primary producers have been the U.S. (Stingers and their follow-ons) and the former Soviet Union (SA-7, -14, -16, -18) and its licensees. According to Jane’s MANPADs are

”small rocket-propelled warheads with heat-seeking sensors. They are designed to be triggered by a trained operator from a tube-like, disposable launcher and to follow the heat of a jet engine’s exhaust to its source.”

They are generally meant to kill fast (and slow!) moving combat aircraft including jets, helicopter and other chunks of metal flying low (15K feet and under) in the target area.

According to Salon, U.S. government agencies estimate that, since the 1970s, at least 42 civilian aircraft have been hit by MANPADs–with 29 going down.

Jane’s Intelligence Review reports at least seven fatal attacks on commercial aircraft world- wide from April 1996 to October 2000.

From 1992 through 1995, just before I retired from the USAF I was a senior counterintelligence collection manager assigned to the Air Mobility Command (AMC).

Things that could shoot down C-5s, C-17s, C-141s and C-130s in “routine” deployments (Somalia, Restore HOPE I and II, Rwanda, and other deployment to the world’s “s**t holes”) were more than just a passing interest.

I was deployed in Somalia in 1992, 93, and 94 and was one of the USAF CI collections manager at the airport at Mogadishu.

A few of us CI types; USAF AFOSI, USA MI, USMC Combat CI and the Navy’s - Oh yeah, I forgot, we never saw the Navy types “on the beach” - with our Somali translators, did everything from source development to identification of weapons caches.

Contrary to the prevailing view when we first arrived in Dec 92, we were finding SA-7 MANPADS all over the place (slight exaggeration, Senior NCO’s prerogative, maybe 10 – 15 in the time I was there?).

When we began reporting the finds in sufficient numbers to disprove the official line they went to phase two, “The missiles weren’t viable after years of inattention.”

In fairness, there was more fact than fiction to this claim, most of them were junk, still some of the nasty little buggers were capable enough.

War story, every bit is true, give or take a lie or two.

On 12/10/1992, I was on the second plane into Mogadishu, and met up with the USMC MEU guys who’d arrived during the early morning hours.

The next day or so, we had some French Legionnaires coming onto the airfield in an armored vehicle when a local Somali thug, whacked out on Khat, fired what we later identified as a SA-7 at the French, apparently under the impression he was firing some kind of Light Anti-armor Weapon (LAW) at them.

The missile fired and because it hadn’t been “locked” onto any heat source (or didn’t have a battery, or was broken or..or..) went thermal when it cleared the tube and cork spiraled up towards the sun before it detonated.

The Legionnaires smoked him, but you have to wonder what was going through his mind when he saw his perfect shot turn into a fireworks display.

Anyway, back to the main story

Disclosure here, I’m way out of my league on this next part and any Soviet and/or U.S. MANPAD weapon’s expert will be deferred to!

It turns out the SA-7s (or some variant of one of their MANPADs) use some type of chemical two part battery that have to be combined together before the seeker head would operate successfully, unlike our “Stingers” that have regular batteries with a finite shelf life.

We had found several SA-7s, most sans batteries, but three had their batteries and when we activated them, two “worked” when the EOD guys tested the batteries. (We sent the third back to the CIA, never heard if it worked)

“Conventional wisdom” by the time I retired was that the SA-7, 14 et al, while a serious threat, wasn’t considered to be a slam dunk big plane killer because of its small warhead and the anticipated survival of most large military and larger civilian aircraft.

I do recall that the jury’s was still out on C-141s; the wings are flying gas tanks and if the missile missed the engine but hit the wing, well.

Post script, I was on the next to the last USAF airplane out of Somalia in 1994; a C-5 with the entire suite of defense equipment, including an awesome decoy deployer that threw a few hundred high heat flares out. It was a heck of a light show but I was inside and couldn’t see it!!! I saw the video later, pretty amazing.

Good thing we hadn’t used them earlier though, we apparently started several (hopefully) minor fires.

Oh well, that my MANPAD war story and I'm sticking with it!

Jim in Texas, CMSgt, USAF ret.

jacflash - sure, the system is in place more or less as before. The problem isn't really one of technology though - its one of human operators. Russia would face the same problems as the USA has when it comes to shooting down passenger jets.

First - the threat is still new enough that effective procedures probably aren't in place to shoot down passenger jets. The US might have them, because of the experience of 9/11, but I doubt they are in place throughout the rest of the world. Even if they do exist, I doubt they exist outside of the paper they are written on.

Second - it takes a brave man to authorise shooting down a passenger jet when a mix of (often contradictory) information is coming in. At the absolute maximum whoever had to make a decision to shoot down the jet(s) had 41 minutes to decide, and thats assuming that they knew what was happening from the moment the plane took off.

In fact, reports suggest that the warning of a hijacking was passed to air traffic control just two or three minutes before the plane crashed. There is simply no way, in my opinion, that a decision of that magnitude would be taken that quickly in response to a completely unexpected situation.

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