Sinai tragedy airbus a321 crash. Lost flight: what is known about the causes of the A321 crash a year later. Two main versions

Airbus A321 flight 9268 of Kogalymavia Airlines (Metrojet brand) crashed and disappeared from radar on the morning of Saturday, October 31. There were 224 people on board the plane - passengers, children, 7 crew members, all of them were Russians. The airliner was operating a “tourist” flight between Sharm El-Sheikh and St. Petersburg.

The latest information about the disaster can also be read on Twitter using the hashtag #KogalymAvia And #7k9268 .

The Egyptian authorities officially confirmed the plane crash and began searching for the wreckage with the army, while the Turkish aviation authorities reported that the airliner had entered their airspace. At the same time, the media previously stated that the airliner continued its flight, but the official press of Cairo states that the plane crash did occur, and the wreckage of the airliner is in Sinai.

The most eloquent illustration is the Flightradar system, which allows you to track any civilian aircraft in the world that have special transponders. According to Flightradar it is seen that the plane "descended at approximately 6,000 feet per minute (110 km/h) before the signal was lost" 23 minutes after takeoff.

The press also reports that the airliner’s crew reported malfunctions; some journalists say that the PIC and co-pilot requested emergency landing- however, this information has not yet been confirmed.

Let us note that many pilots and aviation experts, speaking about plane crashes, recalled that an engine failure (without destroying the engine or the aircraft) does not lead to the crash of airliners - they can glide even with all engines turned off to the nearest airfield (this has also happened in the history of aviation - media they remember both the emergency landing of the Tu-204 and the “Gimli glider”).

“The plane crashed in a closed military zone. Counter-terrorism operations are being carried out there,” reports VGTRK.

State of emergency declared in North Sinai in Egypt due to crash Russian plane, the Prime Minister of Egypt, rescuers and military personnel went to the crash site.

Reuters reports that "the screams of surviving passengers may be heard at the crash site."

“The CREW OF THE CRASHED RUSSIAN AIRLINER COMPLAINED ABOUT ENGINE PROBLEMS SEVERAL TIMES A WEEK,” news agencies report.

"Egyptian emergency services began removing the bodies of those killed in the crash of the Russian A-321 on the Sinai Peninsula," reports AFP. The disaster site is cordoned off and protected from looters.

"The bodies of five children have been found; the Russian plane that crashed in Sinai has broken into two parts," AFP said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his deepest condolences to the relatives of those killed in the Kogalymavia plane crash, ordering rescuers to be sent to the scene of the tragedy.

“The total flight time of the 48-year-old commander of the plane that crashed in Egypt was 3,682 hours. Of these, Valery Nemov flew 1,100 hours as an aircraft commander,” Lifenews.ru said.

“As it became known, before flying on an A-321 type aircraft, Valery Nemov flew a TU-154. The pilot was retrained in training center AmurAir, located in Turkey,” adds the press, calling the PIC a professional pilot.

It became known that at least one of the passengers on the flight posted a photo of the plane and her husband and daughter before takeoff, writing " we're flying home ".

“According to the Egyptian side, the plane was trying to land at El-Arish airfield,” the Russian Embassy reported.

“As it became known, from the wreckage of a Russian airliner that crashed 100 kilometers from El-Arish in the north Sinai Peninsula, about a hundred bodies of passengers were pulled out,” reports Egypt Independet.

“Eyewitnesses say that the plane that crashed in Egypt was burning in the air,” Kommersant FM reported.

The media reported that rescuers found one of the flight recorders - black boxes - at the scene of the tragedy.

President Vladimir Putin declared mourning on November 1 in connection with the crash of a Russian airliner in Egypt.

The bodies of all 17 children were found at the A-321 crash site in Egypt. RIA Novosti reports with reference to a representative civil aviation.

As Gazeta.Ru found out, travel company Brisco, whose clients were flying on the crashed plane, and Kogalymavia airline are owned by the same people.

“Either a fire in the central/tail section, or an engine fire spreading throughout the entire nacelle with subsequent thermal destruction of the wing,” they write on a professional pilot forum.

The local Bedouin tribe Al Tayaha saw a Russian Kogalymavia airliner crash on the Sinai Peninsula. According to the nomads, the Airbus A321 burst into flames in the air, in particular, they saw one of the plane’s engines burning.

"Many died in seats wearing seat belts," Egyptian intelligence official/Reuters

The office of the owner of the Kogalymavia airline on Stoleshnikov Lane in Moscow is being searched. Law enforcement officers are seizing documents and electronic media from the office, media reports.

Egyptian aviation authorities do not rule out that the crash with the Russian airline Kogalymavia in Egypt was due to a terrorist attack, CBS Extra reports. “This version is unlikely, since terrorists in the region do not have appropriate weapons - anti-aircraft missile systems, because the plane was at an altitude of more than 6 thousand meters,” experts say.

“A couple of months ago, rockets were fired at Israeli territory from Sinai. In Syria and Libya, Islamists captured dozens of C125 and C200 complexes. In Yemen, firefights are taking place using Point U, and the Saudis have deployed Patriots along the entire border,” they write on social networks.

"According to a representative of the Egyptian investigation committee aviation incidents Ayman al-Mugadem, the pilot warned ground controllers that the plane had a “technical problem” and needed to land as soon as possible,” Izvestia reported.

Egyptian authorities said no one survived the Russian plane crash, Reuters reported.

Before taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh, the crashed plane underwent the necessary technical checks and no faults were identified, said the head of the Egyptian airport company Adel Mahgoub. “A technical inspection of the aircraft was carried out and its airworthiness was confirmed,” he emphasized.

On October 31, 2015, a Russian Airbus A321 of Kogalymavia Airlines (Metrojet), operating flight 9268 Sharm el-Sheikh - St. Petersburg, on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

There were 224 people on board the plane, including 217 passengers (58 men, 134 women and 25 children - of which 212 were citizens Russian Federation, four people are citizens of Ukraine, one citizen of Belarus) and seven crew members.

Most of the people on the plane were residents of St. Petersburg. Residents of neighboring regions also returned to Russia - Leningrad region, Novgorod, Pskov, Karelia, several people from other subjects of the Federation. Everyone on board died. The disaster was the largest in the history of Russian and Soviet aviation.

The Airbus-A321 aircraft of the Kogalymavia airline (Metrojet), in which the tour operator Brisco, took off from Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt) to St. Petersburg on October 31 at 06.51 Moscow time and disappeared from the radar screens after 23 minutes. According to the Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority, the airliner was flying at an altitude of 9.4 kilometers, then sharply decreased by 1.5 kilometers, after which it disappeared from radar.

There was no word on the fate of the plane for quite some time. The airliner disappeared from radar screens in the Cyprus area, so for half an hour they could not determine exact location possible crash.

To search for the Russian plane there was military aviation Egypt. The Israel Defense Forces sent its reconnaissance aircraft to the Egyptian services to participate in the search operation.

The wreckage of A321 was discovered in the center of the Sinai Peninsula in the mountains between the areas of Al-Kantala and Al-Laksim near the city of Al-Hasna. To identify the aircraft, Egyptian emergency services were sent to the discovery site, where a large-scale search and rescue operation was carried out.

In agreement with Cairo, a group of forces and assets of the Russian United state system prevention and liquidation of emergency situations (RSChS) in the amount of more than one thousand people and 250 units of equipment, of which from the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia - more than 660 people and 100 units of equipment, as well as psychologists of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia.

Search operations were organized at the site using unmanned aerial vehicles. aircraft and space monitoring data, more than 40 square kilometers of territory were surveyed.

On the day of the plane crash, two A321 flight emergency recorders were found in Cairo - voice and parametric.

In connection with the crash of a Russian plane in Egypt, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared mourning in the country on November 1, 2015. The authorities of St. Petersburg until November 3, and the Leningrad region until November 4.

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation on the fact of the plane crash of a Russian plane in Egypt was first under the article “Violation of flight rules and preparation for them,” then another under the article “Performance of work or provision of services that do not meet safety requirements.” Later they were in the same production.

On instructions from the President, the Russian government in connection with the disaster, headed by Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov. The Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) was under the leadership of the executive director of the committee, Viktor Sorochenko.

Cairo immediately after the disaster, all interested countries offered the opportunity to take part in the investigation of the tragedy. A special team was created, which included specialists from five countries: Russia, Egypt, France (the state that developed the aircraft), Germany (the state that manufactured the airliner) and Ireland (the state of registration). Ayman al-Muqaddam was appointed head of the commission to investigate the disaster.

On November 1, 2015, Egyptian Prosecutor General Nabil Ahmed Sadek investigated the causes of the crash of a Russian plane in the Sinai Peninsula. According to the Russian Ambassador in Cairo, Sergei Kirpichenko, Russia and Egypt have an agreement, according to which Russian specialists have access to almost everywhere they want to go as part of the investigation into the A321 crash.

A group of investigators and criminologists from the central office of the Investigative Committee of Russia, in agreement with the competent authorities and together with representatives of the Republic of Egypt, in accordance with the norms of national and international law, participated in the inspection of the scene of the plane crash in Egypt.

The head of the FSB of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bortnikov, during a meeting in the Kremlin on the results of the investigation into the causes of the crash of the Russian plane, said that as a result of an examination of personal belongings, luggage and parts of the plane that crashed in Egypt, traces of foreign-made explosives were identified. It happened like a terrorist attack.

In turn, the Egyptian authorities. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that this criminal case is considering the terrorist attack as one of the versions.

In March 2016, the International Commission of Inquiry into the crash of the Russian A321 aircraft announced that it was from the Investigative Committee of Russia and transferred it to the Egyptian Prosecutor General's Office to complete legal procedures. The commission itself, despite the transfer of the case to the investigative authorities of the country's state security, will continue the technical examination of the wreckage of the airliner.

In mid-April, Egypt's Prosecutor General Nabil Sadek reported the crash of a Russian plane to the country's Supreme State Security Prosecutor's Office. The decision of the head of the supervisory agency, as noted in the text of the statement, was made on the basis of data from the report of the Investigative Committee of Russia, “which indicates a suspicion of the presence of a criminal trail.”

In June, CIA Director John Brennan, speaking in the US Senate, said that American intelligence implicated the Egyptian group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist movement banned in many countries, in the explosion on the Russian A321 passenger plane. (IS), and on August 4, the Egyptian Ministry of Defense announced the elimination of the leader of this terrorist group.

On August 28, the commission investigating the disaster began “laying out” fragments of the aircraft’s structure in an aircraft hangar in the city of Cairo, where they were delivered from the crash site. after its completion, the point from which the destruction of the airliner’s hull began was determined.

According to media reports, when analyzing the layout of the collected fragments of the A321 in the hangar of Cairo airport, experts said that terrorists placed an explosive device in the tail of the ship, the explosion caused the separation of the tail section and an uncontrolled dive. According to them, Russia has almost completed a report on the causes of the disaster, clearly indicating a terrorist trail: a powerful explosive device with a clock mechanism was used, which provoked a strong blast wave and fire.

The investigation into the crash of the Russian A321 over the Sinai Peninsula. On October 24, it became known that an investigation commission formed by the Egyptian Prosecutor General's Office sent twelve fragments of the airliner to a scientific alloy laboratory for a detailed study.

After the disaster, there were flights to Egypt from the Russian Federation and there was a flow of tourists. Russia stated the need to ensure security at Egyptian airports in order to resume air traffic between the countries. Flights to this country have also been suspended by a number of European airlines. Egyptian authorities are making great efforts to improve security measures in resort places and airports, wanting to restore tourist flow. In the months since the tragedy, many foreign expert delegations have visited Egyptian airport security inspections in Cairo, Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

October 31, 2015, flight Sharm el-Sheikh - St. Petersburg. Someone looks through photos on their phone, imagining how they will tell their family and friends about their vacation. Married couples calm down children who are acting too violently in the morning - and are probably afraid to fly. Departure was on schedule, we headed straight into the sky. The very next day, the media circulated a photo of the “main passenger” - ten-month-old Darina Gromova. This photograph will become a kind of symbol of the fateful Airbus flight 321, from which none of the 224 people returned alive.

"Flight in normal mode"

The plane took off safely and began to climb at 6:50 Moscow time. Everything is going as normal, when suddenly after 23 minutes the dispatchers lose contact with the crew.

Meanwhile, at the St. Petersburg Pulkovo airport they report that the flight is delayed “by technical reasons". Time is postponed once, they are postponed twice... In Russia, they try not to think about the worst and nervously wait for messages from relatives: about an emergency landing, or about anything, as long as they write. When the flowers have already begun to fade, and the message about the next one is lit up on the board rescheduling the flight, the nerves of the relatives could not stand it: calls began pouring in to the Kogalymavia airline and the tour operator Brisco, “We’re figuring everything out,” “Don’t worry,” people heard in different authorities.

And then came the news that flashed through everyone’s head, but they refused to believe. It was not immediately known that everyone had died. One of the rescuers who immediately moved to the scene after the crash reported that he heard the voices of passengers coming from under the wreckage of the liner. Within minutes it became clear: I hadn’t heard, it seemed.

Main passenger

A photograph of ten-month-old Darina Gromova from Gatchina, taken at Pulkovo airport, seemed to have gone around all the well-known Russian media and was circulated on social networks. The photograph became one of the symbols of that terrible tragedy.

Son, Alexey, wanted to be a pilot. Only I didn’t allow it,” Darina’s grandmother Elena later told Life.

Alexey's father was a military pilot for 30 years. The young man himself graduated from a technical specialty and went to work for an IT company. Here he met Tatyana. The young people got married a little more than a year before the tragedy. The young man’s social network page, which is still accessible, contains many photos of the couple in love, taken on their wedding day.

Tatyana called her daughter “the main passenger.” Before the flight from Pulkovo, she photographed a girl who was pressing her hands against the glass and posted the picture on social networks.

Darina’s grandmother suggested that parents not take their child on the flight: he would be scared and would not tolerate it well. But they didn’t listen: the child needed to bask in the sun.

"I won't live without her"

October 31st was a tragedy for thousands of people. Svetlana Dudochkina’s husband, Anatoly, was unable to fly with his wife on vacation that time. The couple had been to Egypt more than once, so the woman knew quite well how to behave at the resort. His warning seemed even more strange.

It was the first time she went on vacation without me. I told her that if something happens, I won’t survive without her. “I don’t want to live anymore, I’m not interested,” Anatoly said after the crash.

The woman went on vacation in the company of her daughter and two young grandchildren. But the daughter decided to stay another day or two, since there was an opportunity to rest longer. As a result, only Svetlana of the whole family boarded the fateful flight.

Birthday gift

On October 27, the common-law wife of the then deputy head of Pskov, Alexandra Kopylova, celebrated her birthday. He bought trips for himself and his beloved, Elena Melnikova. They didn’t want to let me go from work, but the deputy head of the city persuaded me to do it. He argued that the reason was too weighty.

The man met his future common-law wife at work. The fact is that Elena is the head of the personnel department in the Pskov City Duma. Alexander’s wife died several years earlier, Elena was divorced. They had been together for about a year at that point.

All the time on vacation, Elena talked on social networks about how they had a very good rest - swimming, sunbathing and generally having a blast. I went online for the last time three hours before the fateful flight.

“A little more and I’ll leave aviation”

Senior flight attendant, 38-year-old Valentina Martsevich, who devoted 12 years to the sky, planned to retire from aviation in the near future. I wanted peace of mind and made plans for a calm family life. Valentina's husband, Maxim, is the commander of the aircraft. At that moment he was on a China Airlines flight.

Valentina herself is from Anapa, she was working at the Krasnodar airport when she met her future husband. Soon they moved to Moscow together. He is always on the flight, she is on the next flight. Tired of seeing my husband and family in fits and starts.

On October 5, her birthday, she flew home to hug her mother. Friends later recalled that she behaved quite strangely: she spoke strangely, smiled strangely, and took a lot of pictures.

While returning to Moscow, shortly before the fateful flight, the woman got scared for the first time in her life while boarding. She told her friends how the plane was shaking and she was afraid that the pilots would not land the plane successfully.

"Fluffy, I'm waiting"

Flight attendant Marina Okhotnikova was supposed to meet her steward husband Andrei Belomestnov at Domodedovo on November 1. The plan looked like this: Andrey lands in Pulkovo, rests, and then goes to Moscow as a passenger. 20 minutes after its arrival in the capital, it lands. The young people were planning an unforgettable weekend.

The couple had a tradition: all four years that they were together, Andrei sent his beloved SMS during such “intersections” with the same text: “Fluffy, I’m already waiting for you.” This time there was no message. Andrei was supposed to turn 30 in November...

Versions

Experts considered four main versions of the plane crash: a technical malfunction, a pilot error, that the plane was shot down, and an explosion.

Technical problem

The first version that investigators began to consider was a technical malfunction. Allegedly the liner had defects. For example, 14 years before the tragedy, in November 2001, at Cairo airport, the airliner landed unsuccessfully and hit the ground with its tail. At that time it was still owned by Middle East Airlines. After the incident, the aircraft was repaired and sold. After that, it was chartered by various airlines until it finally “settled” at Kogalymavia in 2012.

You can say whatever you want about this airline, but any aircraft of any carrier undergoes inspection before a new flight. In addition, the boards undergo technical checks. So, the engines of the airliner were examined five days before the tragedy. And it is unlikely that the experts would have missed such a significant malfunction that could have caused the plane to crash. This point of view was confirmed by the airline. In addition, experienced pilots have repeatedly said that none of the crew members would risk their own lives, but would simply refuse to fly if in doubt.

Another fact speaks against the version of a malfunction: on the eve of the crash, the Airbus was flying from Sharm el-Sheikh to Samara and back. After that, it underwent maintenance at the Egyptian airport; no critical problems were recorded.

A week after the tragedy, IAC representatives said that until the recording of the recorders stopped, the flight proceeded as usual; information about failures of the aircraft’s systems and components was not recorded on the parametric recorder.

Crew error

This version became the second. Allegedly, the pilots could panic and behave incorrectly in a critical situation. This version was denied by the Federal Air Transport Agency on the same day. PIC Valery Nemov was originally a military pilot, and after retirement (the man was 48 years old) he retrained as a civil aviation pilot at the AmurAir training center in Turkey. His total flight experience is 3,682 hours, of which 1,100 hours were as an aircraft commander.

The co-pilot, 45-year-old Sergei Trukhachev, had 5,641 flight hours under his belt - more than the PIC. He underwent special training in the Czech Republic to fly the A321.

The Kogalymavia pilots themselves ruled out the possibility of an error: they posted a letter on the Internet just a few hours after the tragedy, where they claimed that there could be no error.

Shot down

Shortly after the crash, ISIS militants claimed responsibility for the plane crash. They even published a video where the aircraft was allegedly shot down. It soon turned out that the video was nothing more than a fake, and no one shot down the Russian airliner.

After a preliminary inspection of the wreckage of the plane, it became clear to experts that no one had fired at it.

The plane broke up in the air. Initially, the tail section was torn off, and then the entire airliner began to disintegrate. The wreckage of the aircraft was located at a distance of about 40 km from each other, the tail and nose were at a distance of 5 km.

Terrorist attack

This version is a priority. The media began to write that there was a bomb on board a few hours after the tragedy. Within a month, the fact of the explosion was confirmed by Russian experts. Thus, on November 16, 2015, the head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, at a meeting in the Kremlin for the first time officially stated that what happened was a terrorist attack.

It was initially assumed that the bomb was planted between the passenger seats in the 30th row. However, later experts came to the conclusion that an improvised explosive device with a capacity of up to 1 kg in TNT equivalent was located in the tail section, next to the baby strollers. A timer installed in the bomb counted down how many more minutes the 224 people would live. After the explosion, the tail section of the airliner was torn off, and it went into an uncontrolled dive.

For a long time, Egyptian officials did not officially recognize the incident as a terrorist attack (according to one version, for fear of multimillion-dollar lawsuits from relatives of the victims). Cairo called for waiting for the official results of the investigation, which, by the way, are still missing. However, in February 2017, the representative of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Ahmed Abu Zeid, somewhat admitted that a terrorist attack had occurred on board.

Dozens or even hundreds of people became victims of terrorist operations, including as a result of the crash of a Russian airliner in the Sinai, he said.

* The organization is banned in Russia by decision of the Supreme Court.

Exactly a year ago, on October 31, 2015, the most massive plane crash in Russia in terms of the number of victims occurred. Then in the north of the Sinai Peninsula an A321 plane of the Russian airline Kogalymavia. There were 217 passengers on board, including 24 children, and seven crew members. They all died. Russian authorities have recognized the incident as a terrorist attack, but the international investigation has not yet been completed.

On October 31, an A321 aircraft of the Russian airline Kogalymavia was performing chartered flight from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. The airliner took off at 5:50 am and disappeared from radar 23 minutes later. On the same day, Egyptian government search teams discovered the wreckage of a destroyed plane near the city of Nehel in the northern Sinai Peninsula. All 224 people on board died, including 219 Russians, four citizens of Ukraine and one native of Belarus.

Causes of the A321 crash

The international investigation, led by Egyptian aviation authorities, is not yet over. Representatives of Russia, France, Germany, Ireland and the USA take part in it.

Western media were the first to report that a terrorist attack could have occurred on board the A321, shortly after the plane crash, citing their sources in the intelligence services and officials. From these publications it followed that the US and British authorities considered the version of a terrorist attack to be the most likely. However, Moscow publicly distanced itself from it for a long time, calling the version of the terrorist attack premature and calling to wait for the official results of the investigation. And only on November 6, a decision was made to suspend air traffic with Egypt until the causes of the A321 crash were clarified and to evacuate the Russians there.

Officially, the FSB terrorist attack that occurred over Sinai only two and a half weeks after the disaster, on November 17. According to the department, an improvised explosive device went off during the flight. Vladimir Putin, at a meeting of the Security Council, find the organizers of the crash “anywhere on the planet” and destroy them.

However, even after these statements, the Egyptian authorities continued to insist that the most probable cause The disaster was a technical problem. And only in February 2016, the country's President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi admitted that a terrorist attack had occurred on board the A321.

In September, the Kommersant newspaper, citing sources, reported that an international technical commission had established the exact location of the explosion on the plane. According to the publication, experts determined that terrorists had mined the compartment oversized luggage in the tail of the plane, hiding an explosive device between baby carriages and wicker furniture carried by tourists.

Russia and the CIA believe that the explosion on board was organized by Wilayat Sinai (until 2014 - Ansar Beit al-Maqdis), a cell of the terrorist organization Islamic State (ISIS) banned in Russia. The group claimed responsibility for the downing of A321: On November 18, 2015, the Islamic State's propaganda magazine, Dabiq, published a photo of an improvised explosive device made from a can of Schweppes soda. As stated in the article, this is the device that was activated on board the A321. In August 2016, the Egyptian military reported the murder of Wilayat Sinai leader Abu Duaa al-Ansari, suspected of organizing the terrorist attack.

Scandalous case

Relatives of those killed in the disaster have repeatedly complained about the progress of the investigation and the process of paying compensation. In December, lawyer Igor Trunov, on behalf of 35 relatives, filed a complaint with the Basmanny Court about the inaction of the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin. According to the lawyer, it was expressed in the fact that the Investigative Committee ignored two appeals from relatives. In one of them, they asked to be informed of the number of the criminal case, to be recognized as victims and to be acquainted with the materials of the investigation. Another complaint concerned Ingosstrakh. The appeal alleged that the company fraudulently obtains statements from relatives of the deceased that limit their right to go to court to obtain compensation. Ingosstrakh itself categorically rejected these accusations. And the claim against Bastrykin was rejected.

Consequences

After the crash of the Kogalymavia plane, Russia suspended air traffic with Egypt, and tour operators were prohibited from working in this direction. They have been waiting all year for the resumption of communications with the country, which for many years was one of the main resort destinations for Russians. According to the latest data, this may happen no earlier than December-January.

To resume flights, the Egyptian side needs to fulfill a number of airport security requirements (their full list has not been officially published). During the year, Russia repeatedly sent its specialists to Egypt for inspections at the airports of Cairo, Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada, but each time there were violations. According to sources from the Al-Watan newspaper, quoted by TASS, “a number of Russian structures refuse to discuss the issue of resuming air traffic with Egypt until the results of the official investigation appear.”

With the closure of air traffic, Egypt suffered significant losses. From the collapse of tourism, one of the country’s key industries (more than 11% of GDP until November 2015), Egypt’s budget, according to Reuters, lost more than three billion dollars.

The crash of the Russian airbus and the subsequent cessation of flights to the Arab Republic led to problems for Kogalymavia itself and the associated tour operator Brisco, which was the customer of flight 9268. The case of declaring the carrier bankrupt has been dragging on since the spring of 2015, the next meeting will take place on November 10. In March, Rosaviatsia limited Kogalymavia’s operator’s certificate and deprived it of access to 13 international destinations.

The organizer of the flight, tour operator Brisco, suspended operations on August 2 until it repaid debts to clients and agencies. As reported on the Brisco website, after the closure of flights to Egypt and Turkey, the company suffered “colossal financial and economic losses.”

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, throughout the 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 performing a charter flight and was carrying Russian tourists home after rest.

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 main 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. Russian airline, in turn, since May 1, 2012, has already operated under the Metrojet brand.

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

The investigation into the causes of the tragedy was launched by several large structures of the world, since Egypt is a very popular tourist destination among citizens of many countries.

The investigation began to be carried out by the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee, the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis of Civil Aviation Safety of France, and the German Federal Bureau of Investigation aviation accidents, the Irish Aircraft Accident Investigation Branch, 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 November 1, the previously found “black boxes” from the lost airliner were deciphered.

In the meantime investigative committee 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 metro" and "Production, storage, transportation or sale of goods and products, performance of work 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 from this Arab country until the situation in the aviation security sector is normalized.

At the same time, the remaining Russian tourists at that time were taken out of Egypt upon the expiration of tourist vouchers, but they were only allowed to take on board the planes hand luggage, and the 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 internal and international flights 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 plane crashed 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