The crash of the Kogalymavia A321 aircraft was the largest in the history of Russian aviation. Airbus A320 family aircraft accidents

The investigation into the cause of the crash of the A321 airliner over the Sinai Peninsula, which claimed the lives of 224 people, continues. Experts are analyzing the wreckage and have begun deciphering the black boxes. RT has collected the current main versions of the causes of the tragedy.

Version: the plane was shot down by terrorists

The Islamic State terrorist group hastened to claim responsibility for the crash of the Kogalymavia airliner. However, as the main “evidence” the terrorists provided a video in which Internet users easily recognized the fake.

In addition, the extremists did not say how exactly they managed to do this. As experts note, the militants have portable anti-aircraft systems, but they are not enough to shoot down a plane at an altitude of almost 10 km.

According to security specialist and former officer of the British Army and counter-terrorism units Charles Shoebridge, the statements of IS militants are just an attempt to save their image against the backdrop of the successes of Russian aviation in .

Egyptian Minister of Civil Aviation Wa'il al-Madawi also confirmed that the terrorists were not able to shoot down the plane, since this would require the capabilities of an entire state. “We need radars for search, radars for determining the location of the aircraft, radars for fire control. Only the state has this, not the groups,” al-Madawi said.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, in turn, said that there is no direct evidence of terrorist involvement in the crash of a Russian plane in Egypt.

Version: explosion on board the airliner

As the US State Department noted, Washington does not have information that the cause of the plane crash could have been a terrorist attack, however, according to media reports, American military satellites using infrared sensors managed to record flashes at the time of the crash of the Russian plane.

According to one version, it was a bomb on board the airliner; according to another, the explosion occurred in the fuel tank as a result of equipment failure. But, as the Pentagon clarified, the thermal outbreak may not have been related to the plane crash at all.

In turn, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, answering a question from journalists about the possibility of a terrorist attack on board the plane that crashed in Egypt, said that at the moment there is no new information related to this version of the disaster.

Version: technical problems

Experts also cited cabin depressurization as a possible cause of the A321 crash in Egypt. According to them, the plane's body could burst due to a sharp pressure drop.

According to representatives of Kogalymavia, the Airbus A321 plane that crashed in Egypt previously had damage to the tail section, but the company noted that the necessary repairs were made and the technical condition of the airliner did not raise any questions.

At the same time, according to airline representatives, even before the crash, the Airbus A321 aircraft most likely received significant structural damage. In addition, according to their data, after the onset of a catastrophic situation, the airliner was in uncontrolled flight.

Also, according to Egyptian media, a malfunction on board the Russian plane led to damage to the starboard side of the airliner. Journalists reported this with reference to unnamed sources. At the same time, the media do not specify what, in their opinion, caused the damage - deliberate actions on board or technical problems.

In addition, according to unverified data, during the decoding of the black boxes, experts discovered sounds uncharacteristic of a normal flight that appeared right before the crash. At the same time, as RBC writes, from the recording of the conversation between the pilots and dispatchers, one can conclude that “four minutes before the plane disappeared from the radar, the situation remained normal.”

Version: human factor

Another version that cannot be completely ruled out is a pilot error that led to the disaster. As representatives of Kogalymavia previously noted, according to their data, the crew of the crashed A321 at the time of the disaster completely lost control of the aircraft. However, the reasons for this are still unknown.

This version of what happened can be considered in more detail only after the black boxes have been fully deciphered and the results of the analysis of the aircraft wreckage have been obtained.

As former American Airlines pilot Mark Weiss emphasized, much remains unclear in the investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy.

“The plane was in the air for about 20 minutes. During this time, the plane gains cruising altitude and enters a steady air flow. But in case it entered an area of turbulence, passengers could be asked to take their seats. The fact that the “fasten seat belts” signal was turned on and passengers were fastened does not necessarily mean that the plane was landing. There was nowhere to urgently land him at that moment,” the pilot noted in an interview with RT. - Each aircraft engine was equipped with two fire-fighting cylinders, which, in the event of a fire, displace oxygen and the combustion stops. But even if we assume that both engines failed, the plane would begin to glide rather than fall apart. He wouldn't have fallen vertically."

At the moment, rescuers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations continue to search for the remains of victims of the Airbus A321 crash in Egypt, where the wreckage of the plane is scattered over a large area.

As stated by the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, none of the versions of the Airbus crash in Egypt can be ruled out. He emphasized that Vladimir Putin receives information about the tragedy on a regular basis.

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.”

The A321 plane crash over Sinai, which occurred on October 31, 2015, became the worst disaster in Egypt and the largest tragedy in aircraft crashes. The Airbus A321-231 aircraft, owned by the Kogalymavia company, was used by the tour operator Briscoe and carried tourists on flight 9268 Sharm al-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. The crash killed 224 people.

Flight details

Airplane

Airbus A321-231 was produced in 1997. The vessel was then handed over to the owner, the leasing corporation ILFC, which leased it to MEA (Lebanon). The airliner was assigned the number F-0HMP, its capacity was 149 people. In Lebanon it was used for 6 years and was returned to ILFC in 2003.

Fact. During its use at MEA, one failure occurred - when landing in Egypt, the pilots raised the nose of the aircraft too high, and the tail touched the runway. After this, the aircraft was repaired.

In 2003, the aircraft was again leased to Onur Air Corporation (Turkey). The ship's board was modernized, its capacity increased to 220 people. In 2007, the airliner was subleasing to Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudi Arabia), and in 2010 - to Cham Wings (Syria). In 2012, the airliner was leased to Kogalymavia LLC.

According to the leasing company, the aircraft was maintained at a level that complied with the standards, and technical control and inspections were carried out on time. On October 26, 2015, a weekly technical inspection was carried out, and on March 18, 2014, the aircraft underwent factory control. Over all the years of use, the airliner has exhausted 46-48% of its nominal life of scheduled flights.

Crew and passengers

The ship was staffed by a Russian crew, including:

2 experienced pilots,
5 flight attendants.

Among the passengers who were on board the plane at the time of the disaster were 192 people. adults and 25 children. The oldest of them was 77 years old, the youngest girl was 10 months old. All people died in the crash. Photos of the dead were posted on several official websites.

List of passengers killed over Sinai

Most of the victims of the disaster lived in the northwestern regions of the Russian Federation; there were also 4 citizens of Ukraine and 2 from Belarus on the plane.

The list of those killed in the plane crash included:

A. Kopylov – deputy head of the Pskov city administration,
D. Gromova (10 months), whose photo became a symbol of the plane crash.

Chronology of events

Preceding circumstances

On October 30, 2015, Airbus A321-231 made 2 normal flights on the planned routes: Sharm al-Sheikh-Samara-Sharm al-Sheikh. The final disembarkation of passengers at the airport was completed at 15:30, and representatives of the crew who carried it out had no complaints about the condition of the equipment. The vessel underwent scheduled maintenance, and on the morning of October 31, 2015, a new crew took over (V. Nemov and S. Trukhachev), and preparations began for subsequent voyages - Sharm al-Sheikh-St. Petersburg-Sharm al-Sheikh.

The Kogalymavia company was a member of the international united holding company specializing in tourism - TH&C, which also included the Brisco company, which ordered a flight from Egypt to the Northern capital.

Catastrophe

At 5:50 local time in Egypt (6:50 Moscow time), the plane took off from Sharm al-Sheikh airport, headed north along the shore of the bay and gradually rose to 6.4 km. After 12 minutes of flight, the plane turned left to bypass the Sinai Peninsula and reach the Mediterranean, the pilots intended to gain an altitude of 9.75 km.

In the 23rd minute of the flight, the airliner picked up a speed of 755 km/h and climbed 9.4 km when the situation left the normal mode. The ship began to fall at a speed of 1.8 km/min. At 04:13 GES, the flight recorder recording was interrupted due to extraneous noise. After 24 minutes of flight, the plane crashed in Sinai and was instantly destroyed.

Search services found the remains of the disaster among the mountain ranges of the peninsula 50 km from the city of Nekhel. The wreckage of the plane and fragments of the bodies of the dead were scattered over a radius of 13 km, over a total area of 30 km.

Reaction

President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin expressed words of condolences to the loved ones and relatives of the victims of the tragedy. To the Head of Government D.A. Medvedev was charged with creating a commission to investigate the causes of the plane crash. V. Putin called for finding and eliminating the terrorists responsible for the tragedy.

Condolences were expressed to the relatives of the victims, as well as to all Russians:

presidents and prime ministers of more than 50 countries,
Pope,
general secretaries,
heads of religious communities of the Russian Federation.

“Hotlines” were opened for relatives of the deceased passengers: by telephone one could find out all the information about the injured loved ones.

The scandalous French magazine Charlie Hebdo published three cartoons on its pages illustrating the plane crash, which caused sharp negative criticism from the Russian leadership and the public. The illustrations were called "blasphemous", "cruel" and "mocking towards the victims of the tragedy."

Fact. Representatives of the French Foreign Ministry responded that all journalists have the right to freely express personal opinions, but they do not always coincide with the position of the country's official leaders.

On November 20, 2015, the UN Security Council issued a statement condemning the terrorist attacks, including the disaster over Sinai.

Mourning

November 1, 2015 became a day of mourning for Russians. Three days of mourning took place in the Northern capital, and four days in the Leningrad region.

Investigation into the causes of the Sinai tragedy

The investigation into the plane crash was carried out jointly by several countries, including Egypt and the Russian Federation, as well as representatives of Airbus and IASA.

On November 1, 2015, the investigation began: analysis of the information contained in the on-board recording devices, which practically survived, and examination of the remains of the victims. In Russia, a case was initiated under articles 263 and 238 of the Criminal Code of Russia.

The fact that the remains of the airliner were found in a large area of about 30 km allowed us to conclude that the tragedy occurred at a high altitude.

On November 7, 2015, the official leadership of Egypt spoke about the results of the decoding, from which it followed that extraneous loud sounds were heard at the end of the recording. At the end of the flight, an altitude of 9.415 km and a speed of about 520 km/h were recorded; the ship was moving under the guidance of an automatic pilot, who needed to gain altitude.

At that time, several versions of the causes of the plane crash were voiced:

wear and tear of aircraft equipment;
fuel tank ignition;
damage to the aircraft's lithium battery.

On November 16, 2015, information was received that the plane crashed due to a terrorist act - an IED located at the rear of the airbus with a total capacity of 1 kg of TNT went off. This conclusion was made after residues of explosive substances not made in Russia were found on fragments of the plane, personal belongings and bodies of the victims.

Fact. On November 17, 2015, a public announcement was posted that a cash reward of $50 million would be paid for assistance in capturing the terrorists responsible for the plane crash.

Analysis of the remains of the aircraft showed that the IED went off in the rear of the ship, in rows 30-32.

On December 14, 2015, a special commission organized by the Egyptian leadership announced the completion of the investigation into the plane crash and the readiness of the report on it. It indicated that in the process of analyzing the causes of the tragedy, nothing was found indicating a terrorist attack. This is explained by the fact that in the opposite case, the indirect cause of the disaster would have been a flaw in the Egyptian airport security service.

At the beginning of 2016, the current head of Egypt admitted that the airliner crashed as a result of a terrorist attack.

Cause of the disaster

On November 3, 2015, it became known from sources in the US defense department that an American satellite noticed a bright flash corresponding to the location and time of the Airbus A321 accident. No evidence of being hit by the missile was recorded, as a temperature trace would have been observed. Ignition in the air indicated that the tragedy could not have occurred during landing.

A few days after the plane crash, one of the terrorist groups within ISIS announced its involvement in the incident. However, the official leadership of Egypt cited equipment malfunction as the alleged cause of the tragedy.

A number of media representatives, Russian and Egyptian heads of transport departments rejected the explosion hypothesis, calling it propaganda.

On November 5, 2015, the intelligence services of the United States and Great Britain supported the unofficial version of a terrorist attack based on information intercepted from ISIS militants about a bomb being planted on an airplane.

According to the assumptions of foreign intelligence services, expressed by various media, the IED was installed by terrorists subordinate to ISIS in the luggage compartment just before departure.

11/16/2015 at the Council of the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin's version of the explosion of a homemade device was confirmed by the head of the Russian FSB A. Bortnikov.

On September 13, 2016, a special commission determined exactly where the bomb was located: in the oversized baggage section at the tail of the plane. To install the IED, the militants used the help of an employee of the Sharm al-Sheikh airport: just before the flight, a package with an explosive was planted, after which it was covered with strollers and suitcases.

Consequences of the disaster

After the tragedy, many aviation companies, including Kogalymavia, stopped flying over Sinai until the exact causes of the crash were clarified.

From 4 to 6 November 2015, the Governments of Great Britain, Ireland, Russia, Germany and other European countries suspended regular air services over the Sinai Peninsula.

11/16/2015 V.V. Putin announced that Russia will continue to look for the causes of the disaster; it is necessary to join forces and punish those responsible for the tragedy.

Fact. After the disaster in Egypt, an order was issued to intensify air strikes against the terrorist organization ISIS.

Conclusion

The plane crash over the Sinai Peninsula became the largest in the history of Russian passenger aviation. On October 23, 2017, a monument to those who died over the Sinai was erected in St. Petersburg. On October 31, 2017, a memorial to the victims was laid in Vsevolozhsk.

A motley crowd of tourists, a vibrant underwater world that attracts divers from all over the world - all this attracts travelers. Russians were eager to go there as if they were going to a second dacha: at least a week to rest from work and bask in the sun. Whole families flew until the plane crash in Egypt on October 31, 2015 forced the entire country to shudder.

Tragic accident

A tourist group from the Brisco company was returning on a charter flight from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. Despite the early morning (departure at 5.50 local time), the passengers were in excellent spirits. They posted pictures of their successful vacation on social networks. It was Saturday, and on Monday many had to plunge into work; some had work, others had to study.

The Airbus A321-231 EI-ETJ airliner, which arrived from Samara, took 217 passengers on board. They and seven crew members had to be in the Northern capital by 12 noon, where many had relatives and friends waiting at the airport. Having reached a given altitude of 9400 meters in 23 minutes, at a speed of 520 km/h the aircraft suddenly disappeared from the radar. At 6.15 (7.15 Moscow) the plane crashed in the Sinai Peninsula near El-Arish airport - the hottest spot in Egypt, where government troops were confronted by Al-Qaeda Islamists.

Versions of the tragedy

Those meeting flight 9268 at Pulkovo Airport anxiously watched the board, which displayed the information: “Arrival delayed.” And by evening, the whole country knew that the wreckage of the aircraft that had disappeared from radar had been discovered by the Egyptian authorities. Scattered over a length of 13 kilometers, with the tail section torn off, they were shown on television, which gave rise to many versions of experts about the possible causes of the disaster. Three were considered the most reliable:

Technical problems associated either with engine failure or metal fatigue. In the tail section, traces of skin repairs were found after the aircraft touched the asphalt with its tail while landing at Cairo airport in 2001. The resulting microcrack could cause the destruction of the aircraft as it climbed.
The plane crash in Egypt was caused by the crew's mistakes.
Terrorist act.

The IAC commission, headed by Egyptian representative Ayman al-Mukkadam, began working at the site of the tragedy. It included representatives of Russia, France, Germany, the USA and Ireland. After studying the evidence and decoding, the first two versions were found unfounded.

Aircraft

The A321 crash over the Sinai Peninsula was the largest in the history of Egypt and modern Russia. The airbus belonged to the Kogalymavia company, which underwent a thorough inspection. It was found that after the 2001 emergency, the aircraft was repaired in France at the manufacturer's plant, after which all the necessary tests were carried out. Over 18 years of operation, the airliner flew less than 50% of its service life (57,428 hours) and was in good condition. This is evidenced by weekly technical checks, the last of which was carried out on October 26, 2015. The flight recorders did not detect any system malfunction. Until the 23rd minute, the flight proceeded quite normally.

Crew

Forty-eight-year-old crew commander Valery Nemov is a graduate of SVAAULSH (Stavropol Military School). He is one of the few who, in the difficult 90s, retrained to fly on Airbuses since 2008, having 12 thousand flight hours, which testifies to his enormous experience. The second pilot also came from military aviation, being a veteran of the Chechen campaign. After retiring, Sergei Trukhachev retrained on the A321, having undergone training in the Czech Republic. I flew them for more than 2 years. The total flight time was 6 thousand hours. Both pilots were in good standing with their airline. Nemov was even called back from vacation prematurely to be sent on the infamous flight 9268.

Official version

Two weeks after the tragedy, the version of the terrorist attack was officially voiced by the head of the FSB during a meeting with the President of the Russian Federation. To support his words, he provided the following evidence:

American satellites recorded a thermal flash over Sinai during the disaster, which indicates an explosion occurred on board the plane.
The fuselage fragment has a hole with a diameter of about one meter. Its edges are curved outward. This indicates that the source of the explosion was inside.
When decoding the recorder recording the negotiations, before the recording is interrupted, extraneous noise is heard, the nature of which can be attributed to a blast wave.
The plane crash in Egypt caused great public outcry. After a while, they not only admitted responsibility for the terrorist attack, but also posted a photo of an improvised explosive device (IED) on the pages of Dabig magazine.
Some of the victims had injuries indicating death from the consequences of the explosion (burns, tissue ruptures).
Traces of explosives - TNT molecules - were found in fragments of shrapnel, luggage and on the bodies of the victims.

The power of the explosion was estimated at 1 kilogram. The estimated location of the IED is the tail of the aircraft. For the blast wave moved forward, but the fracture of the fuselage prevented its further advancement.

Plane crash in Egypt: who is to blame?

After the Russian version appeared, it became known that 17 employees were detained at the Egyptian airport. The main question was one: “How did the IED get on board the airliner?” The FSB began studying the biographies of 34 passengers (11 men and 23 women) who had TNT molecules on their bodies. But official Egypt soon stated that there was no evidence for a clear statement about a terrorist attack on board the plane. None of the employees were actually arrested. Russian authorities have announced a $50 million reward for any information about the terrorists.

Only in February 2016 did the Egyptian President officially acknowledge the terrorist attack. It was discovered that the bomb was made from plasticite, which is used to create military projectiles. It is powered by a clock mechanism. The plane crash in Egypt on October 31, 2015 showed that the airport security system does not meet international standards. The IED could have come on board the food supply company, through employees with access to the runway, or through carry-on luggage during baggage checks. The latest data is such that it was in the cabin in the immediate vicinity of place 31A. All these facts led to a ban on the sale of holiday tours in Egypt.

Flight passengers

EI-ETJ - the last digits of the Airbus number. According to them, the aviators called the board “Juliet” among themselves, affectionately “Dzhulka”. On that tragic morning, she broke up three aviation marriages and killed a young steward who replaced a colleague who had quit due to a bad dream. It also took the lives of 217 passengers, 25 of whom were children. Those killed in a plane crash in Egypt are entire families, dozens of destroyed love stories, babies who will never grow up. Ten-month-old Darina Gromova was on this flight with her parents. Her mother posted her photo on a social network before the flight. A girl stands at the airport facing the runway, and below is the signature: “Main Passenger.” This picture became a symbol of the tragic flight from which no one was able to return.

Almost all passengers are Russians, 4 people are citizens of Ukraine, 1 is from Belarus. The majority are residents of St. Petersburg, although there are also representatives of other regions: Pskov, Novgorod, Ulyanovsk. Those killed in the plane crash in Egypt are people of various professions. Even while relatives were busy identifying the bodies, caring people were forming a collective portrait of the passengers, collecting information about them bit by bit. A wonderful gallery was created, where there were many good words about everyone.

Almost a year later

On July 31, Moscow and St. Petersburg held a rally in memory of those killed over the Sinai. Nine months passed: many relatives received compensation, identified and buried their loved ones, but the pain did not subside. On August 5, 2016, a message was received that forty-five militants led by Abu Dua al-Ansari, through whose fault the plane crash occurred in Egypt, were killed during a military operation near El-Arish. I really want to believe that something like this will never happen again!

There is still not a single reliable video or even photo from the site of the Russian plane crash in Egypt. The airliner crashed in a special zone, access to which is limited by the authorities due to a simmering conflict with local armed groups.

"Airbus A-321" of the carrier "Metrojet" - this is the company "Kogalymavia" - was operating a flight from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. The plane disappeared from radar screens 23 minutes after takeoff. In the first hours, conflicting information was received about the fate of the airliner, but now we know for sure - the airbus crashed, there were no survivors. There were 224 people on board - seven crew members and 217 passengers. There has never been such a number of casualties in the history of Russian civil aviation.

Sharm el-Sheikh airport, 5 hours 51 minutes local time (6.51 Moscow time). The Kogalymavia airbus, a charter airline 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 with the plane did not take place, it was lost. The mark on the radio radars of the dispatch services also disappeared. There were 217 passengers and 7 crew members on board the plane, mostly Russian citizens.” , - said the press secretary of the Federal Air Transport Agency Sergei Izvolsky.

According to updated data in recent hours, there were also three citizens of Ukraine and one of Belarus on board. 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.

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. They will be delivered to Cairo, and from there they will be transported to Russia. Search efforts are complicated by the mountainous terrain and the fact that the fallen airliner was literally scattered around the area.

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, he managed to leave publications on social networks with the following caption, for example: “Hello, Peter, goodbye, Egypt. We are flying home.”