BREAKING NEWS: airliner missing within Egyptian FIR

[Old Boeing Driver]

@lowca

The rule was never cancelled.

Things can get done in that part of the world for a few dollars/pounds/dinars.

There were mulitple discussions earlier in this thread about lax security at Sharm.

[sopwithnz]

@oleostrut ... thx but that's not the crashing plane footage I was asking about, sorry. Obviously the wrong plane.

But I was asking livesinafield who states the so-called Isis video is BS .. I was asking him if he could provide details of the crashing plane in said video. I want someone to prove it's false, I really do.

[Silver Pegasus]

That video is pretty obviously not real or not from this incident. The angles are all wrong for that height, the poor quality is telling of a CGI mock up, the explosion is totally bizarre in its nature, smoke a bit strange how it starts straight away so thickly (think about it) and going by the debris alone, no way it would be such a large fireball, it would show up on any rear part of the aircraft in fire damage and soot. It looks like an iPhone filming a tv screen going by the landscape to then portrait change in the second clip.

In such a desolate area a small shockwave & ir signature would be picked up by the US/Israelis. So it shouldn't be assumed it was a big explosion that they detected and we already know it wouldn't need to be to bring down a pressurised airliner.

Also the bodies examined have shown no evidence of explosion, evidence of death by fireball or anything suggesting a terror attack. No residue either.

The bomb would have had to been pretty small to not be picked up on even the most lax security checks. Unless.. rumours of it being baggage/loading staff themselves.. But until any media confirm this it is all speculation.

Then there is the issue of how would ISIL know exactly where the plane would be, even using FR24 which is far from accurate in real time or a small route change or anything really and they would be too far away to see. Even if it were real, which it isn't. The folk filming could have easily been the first on scene way before any military or the like to take advantage of that, seing the reports of 20 miles from incident to impact and took images of the crash site to use as propaganda.. Strangely they have not.

No positive on explosive residue as of yet so even talking about a bomb is still hypothetical. Just because David Cameron says it may have been doesn't mean much.

British, Egyptian, Russian and USA air investigator experts have been there testing, nothing about there being bomb residue or fireball damage released. Shrapnel could easily be from in air fuel explosions ie wings detaching or plane parts raining down after initial impact.

Has a passenger list and with nationalities been released yet? It was quickly after the Malaysian incidents.

[silvertate]

And I was always told, that if I do not show at plane after getting boarding pass, my luggage will be thrown off. When this rule was cancelled?

It has not been cancelled. But some regions are more diligent than others. For example, somewhere in that very region we had to search for and take off two bags, because of a no-show. Four minutes later:

Ground: "Ok, bags are off"
Flight: "Hmmm. How did you manage that, without opening the hold...?"

Silver

[lowca]

Things can get done in that part of the world for a few dollars/pounds/dinars.

Old Boeing Driver, with all due respect.

I can easily imagine various 'laxes' - at the airport security level.
But this would mean serious security mistake from the flight crew. Too serious, I think, to be considered.

[Back at NH]

Just been revisiting the report into PA103 over Lockerbie. Interesting reading in terms of effects and break up sequences. The following is very similar:

CVR
It was possible to establish that a loud sound was heard on the CVR cockpit area microphone channel at (19:01:50) +/- 1 second. The tape record ended, at (19:02:50) +/- 1 second, with a sudden loud sound followed almost immediately by the cessation of the recording.
FDR
Decoding and reduction of the data from the accident flight showed that no abnormal behaviour of the data sensors had been recorded and that the recorder had simply stopped at (19:02:51) +/- 1 second

[HarryMann]

Originally Posted by RTM Boy

As EZY9022 and TCX270 are on approach to LCA, it's amazing that LCA can handle all the unscheduled arrivals, but SSH apparently can't. Funny that. Where will TOM898 end up..? Let me think... Egyptians not being difficult, of course not, how could anyone conclude that?!

We hear suggestions that CVR is badly damaged and possibly unrecoverable and that the FDR stopped recording just before whatever happened, happened. Wouldn't that be convenient...(for whom?)

6 days of Russia saying there's no evidence of a bomb, criticising the UK very strongly yesterday for suspending flights, not engaging with them, now Russia halts all flight to Egypt. Funny that.

SSH security widely considered to be a shambles, but now the toughest in the world...overnight. Of course it is.

Agenda anyone?

Will we ever get a definitive answer as to what happened? Now I doubt it very much.

Good god man... Is it even a week yet? This is aviation not some silly TV drama!
This is no place for faux cynicism and conspiracy theories...

[wonkazoo]

A physical analysis of what we know at this time

First- my apologies in advance for what will be a long post.

I have an aviation background (`4400hrs in fixed and rotary wing AC) and an engineering background. I’ve been following this story for a few days, and noodling on the evidence we’ve been presented with. With the hysteria surrounding the possibility of a bomb I thought it might be time to share whatever wisdom I have. (Or don‘t have!!)

There is a video that I am fairly sure everyone has seen already but just in case it can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=Vv_kXAFa_P8 The video shows in close-up HD the failure points of the rear fuselage, from both sides and from front and back. Others have already commented on this failure, but I don’t think anyone here has really laid out what we are looking at- and why it argues pretty strongly for an empennage failure of some sort.

As can be seen clearly in that video the following statements can be made:

1. The upper half of the fuselage failed under tension. (Look at the rivet line where the skin tore- you can see the stretching and scallop line between the rivets, as well as the missing paint that could not remain adhered to the elongating metal. Additionally the stringer failures show that they too failed under tension, with the angle of the failure indicating generally that the rear section was rotating downward with a tremendous amount of force.
2. The lower half of the fuselage in the same area was torn beginning at roughly the halfway point of the fuselage- where the metal would be under compression as a result of the failure described in #1. This failure was with somewhat less force, and based on the tear line the movement of the tail was downward as it separated from the aircraft.
3. The horizontal stabilizer is completely gone. It appears (but is not certain) that the mounting bulkhead for the stabilizer jackscrew may be in an upward position, possibly indicating an upward moving departure/failure.
4. The vertical stabilizer is only present in front of the rudder and shows sign of a violent tearing failure slightly in front of the rudder attachment points.
5. The APU is gone- in fact pretty much everything aft and below the rear hinges for the horizontal stabilizer has been disappeared from the airplane.

Take those facts and it is reasonable to make a few simple conclusions.

1. There was a tremendous quasi-symmetrical downward force applied to the tail of the aircraft- of enough violence to literally tear the skin in front of the bulkhead apart.
2. The failure of the aircraft fuselage in front of the bulkhead was the result of something else happening- it was caused by clearly evident physical application of a bending force. For a variety of reasons this force could not have been applied from either inside the AC or from anywhere in front of the failure point.
3. The only possible thing that could apply such symmetrical force aft of the failure point is the horizontal stabilizer.
4. The only way the horizontal stabilizer could provide such loading and such a consequent bending force so quickly is if it failed at the front hinge-pin/mounting point, and presumably rotated leading edge downward.
5. If the HS failed upwards it would explain the missing APU and rudder as well.

This post is not intended to address the actual cause(s) of why the airplane catastrophically failed, but CNN is now reporting that they are “certain” that it was brought down by a bomb. If you are going to argue that a bomb brought it down you are going to have to account for the incredible longitudinal bending force that was applied to the tail- which as far as I can resolve could only have beencaused by a failure of the front attach point of the HS.

Could someone have placed a bomb under or around the HS jackscrew assembly?? Absolutely. Could a bottle of whiskey filled with C4 inside the pressure hull cause the HS to fail so catastrophically?? No idea, but since they are now suggesting that it definitively is a bomb that brought down the aircraft I look forward to discovering the chain of events that led to the horrible incident- and the evidence as indicated above. (mainly because for the moment I cannot connect the two scenarios.)

Just my .02 as always,
dce

[Bertie Bonkers]

Alleged ISIS video

FWIW, when this video first appeared on Twitter, several commenters suggested it was video game footage filmed from a tv screen with a phone camera to give it an authentic 'hand held' feel.

[HarryMann]

Lockerbie...So 1 minute from first unusual/loud sound to (possibly) the whole aircraft breaking up?
9 miles about 15 km.

[Etud_lAvia]

Cabin Configuration

Some questions have arisen here concerning the seating layout, etc. (e.g., was row 9 an exit row?)

I have been especially curious about the aft layout, because it seems that among jets in the A320 family some operators have no lavatories at the rear, some have 2, some have numerous, and so on.

This is purported to be the layout of the lost Metrojet (see NOTE below!):



It comes from this article giving the passenger manifest, in the Saint Petersburg edition of Komsomol'skaya Pravda.
______________________________

As to why I have been curious about the cabin configuration ... like others on this thread, I felt that visual condition of the upper interior panel of the aft-most right-hand exit door is strongly suggestive of pitting caused small irregular projectiles at extreme high velocity, as may result from a high-explosive blast.

Assuming such fragments to travel in nearly straight lines, the cabin geometry would determine the range of locations at which an explosion could have caused the apparent pitting.

On the basis of the cabin configuration shown above, it would seem that if the pitting were indeed caused by an explosion, then that explosion must have occurred in the galley area, or one of the aft-most lavatories.
______________________________

NOTE: Kulverstukas has since posted that the diagram above shows the cabin configuration for a different Russian airline, NOT Metrojet. He also reports that someone who recently flew Metrojet told him that there are only two aft lavatories, whereas the diagram shows three. Despite some searching, I sill haven't found such a diagram known to accurately represent the lost Airbus.

[HarryMann]

Now being stated that a loud sound 'CAN' be heard on the Metrojet CVR

[mpprh]

"And I was always told, that if I do not show at plane after getting boarding pass, my luggage will be thrown off.
When this rule was cancelled?"

It has happened to me by accident. I spent too long on the phone between check in and boarding and missed the flight, but my luggage didn't.

[txl]

This from France 24:

The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of the Russian plane that crashed in Egypt has confirmed there was an explosion on board Metrojet Airbus A321, French media reported Friday, citing an expert source.

Data from the CVR that was retrieved from the crash site in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has revealed that there was an explosion on board the flight, reported French weekly Le Point, quoting an unnamed expert.

AFP reports the same, quoting an unnamed source close to the investigation.

[Bertie Bonkers]

Originally Posted by txl

AFP reports the same, quoting an unnamed source close to the investigation.

Though that's not necessarily corroboration if France24 source from AFP.

[sopwithnz]

EGYPTIAN PRESS CONFERENCE

Egypt will hold a press conference on Saturday regarding last week’s Russian plane crash in the Sinai Peninsula, the government announced Friday. The press conference is scheduled for 5 p.m. Cairo time (10 a.m. Eastern). Egypt’s minister of civil aviation and the chairman of the commission of inquiry into the Metrojet crash will be present. Egypt is leading the investigation, as the crash happened on its territory.


Egypt to Talk Plane Crash on Saturday - The Daily Beast

[OldnGrounded]

NY Times article worth reading

Egypt’s Dismissal of Terrorism in Russian Plane Crash Creates a Rift

[. . . ]

The widening chasm between Egypt and the world, some say, recalls an earlier crash, in 1999, when EgyptAir Flight 990 plunged into the ocean off the coast of Nantucket Island. Although American investigators said flight records pointed to the decisions of an Egyptian pilot, the Egyptian government blamed a malfunction in the Boeing airplane, and 17 years later the Egyptian-American dispute over the cause is still unresolved.

In that case, the Egyptian investigation was cloaked in mystery and, critics say, politicized from that start.

“I don’t anticipate the Egyptian investigation here to be any more transparent than their work on EgyptAir 990,” James E. Hall, the former head of the National Transportation Safety Board who oversaw that investigation, said in an interview.


The desires of Egypt’s political leaders to minimize the threat of terrorism would almost certainly set the course of its investigators, he said. “The air safety investigators in Egypt are under the thumb of the government,” he said, “and I don’t think that has changed.”


[. . .]



Under international aviation rules, representatives from France, Ireland, Russia and Germany are included in the official committee investigating the crash because of various connections to the plane or the flight, and European officials briefed on the inquiry say others in the committee have urged the Egyptians to disclose more.

But the rules give the Egyptians control over any public statements, and so far Egypt has rebuffed admonitions to disclose any preliminary details of what they may have learned, including whether explosive residue had been detected, the pattern of burn marks on the wreckage or on human remains, or of whatever may have been gleaned from the plane’s flight-recording devices.

More

[Pontius Navigator]

OTOH, at Larnaca two drugged pax were denied boarding at the aircraft. They were returned to the terminal and we were delayed while their bags were offloaded.

The location of the bags w as known and delay minimal.

[txl]

Originally Posted by txl
AFP reports the same, quoting an unnamed source close to the investigation.

Though that's not necessarily corroboration if France24 source from AFP.

You're right, Bertie, it wouldn't be. France 24 refers to Le Point which also sources from AFP. Heres the story:

Black box confirms explosion on Russian plane, says French media

[RatherBeFlying]

If the tailplane came loose from the jackscrew, there would be a very short interval before breakup where various flight parameters would depart from norm.

An explosion that severed the data cable(s) to the recorders would result in recorded parameters being normal to end of recording.

I would expect it would take a reasonably intact fuselage for enough leverage for the tailplane to be ripped out, to say nothing of the forces necessary to free the tailplane from the jackscrew