Two planes down in Russia

[from darkness lite]

Two passenger jets down in Russia, both from the same airport within 1 minute of each other.  Coincidence or are the Chechens up to it again????  You can guess where my money is!!!

WO 

 

[CF104Starfighter]

There's a big conversation on a different website about this. (www.airliners.net).  Apparently witnesses saw the first plane explode.  The aircraft took off from the same airport within minutes of each other, but were hundreds of miles apart when they went off the radar screen, ruling out a midair collision.  BBC is reporting that the airports in Moscow are closed, but I don't know if this is true or not.  It's not getting a lot of N.American coverage.  Putin has opened an investigation, and the Americans are keeping a close eye on the situation.  Hopefully it's not terrorism, and we should keep the victims in mind too.

 

[from darkness lite]

"Hopefully it's not terrorism, and we should keep the victims in mind too"

Agreed, always a waste of life.  However it does appear to be too much of a coincidence.  Most likely scenario, in my professional opinion (Int), bombs on board (However I hope I'm wrong).  The odds of 2 jets going down accidently on the same day are astronomical, the odds of two jets going down with a minute of each other, and out of the same airport, I couldn't even fathom a guess.  If I didn't have to fly to get to places, I'd walk in this day and age.

WO

 

[George Wallace]

Contaminated Fuel?

GW

 

[CF104Starfighter]

Contaminated Fuel?

GW

There was a debate about this on A.net.  Most likely not.  Especially if the plane did in fact explode, which is uncomfirmed.  But would they not have radioed an emergency?  (Don't know if they did, but it sounds like they didn't) especially because they "disappeared" of the radar screen.  And a plane can still glide for a period of time, considering that they did lose both engines. 

 

[from darkness lite]

This is off the CNN site.  No other jets that took off before, or after went down.  Although that doesn't 100% rule out fuel.....  Both jets were also heading to southern Russia, near Chechnya.

Russian authorities offered no explanations for the crashes but said they had increased security at airports following an explosion at a Moscow bus station earlier Tuesday, which injured three people.

"If this were just one, you would look toward some sort of aircraft issue," Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, told CNN.

"But with two of them going down so close together, it's awfully ominous."

The incidents also took place just days before a regional election in the rebellious southern territory of Chechnya, where Russian troops have battled separatist guerrillas for five years.

 

[CF104Starfighter]

And I heard, don't know if it's true, that one of the planes was destined for the town (Don't know the town) where Vladimir Putin is.

 

[clasper]

The Russian news agency Interfax, citing an unidentified source, reported that the hijacking signal came at 11:04 p.m. from the Tu-154 airline

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/08/24/aircrash_040824.html

Another bit of information pointing towards terrorism...

 

[Scratch_043]

I heard a really tasteless joke about this on the radio on my way to work at 6:30 this morning:

the host said: " 'it may have been terrorism', really? you think? synchronized plane diving is not an Olympic event"

I find this form of humour very disrespectful, and hope that his superiors speak to him.

 

[casing]

Looking more and more like terrorists. First paragraph here only, follow the link for full story.

http://www.iht.com/articles/536060.html

Russia's security service announced on Friday that investigators had found traces of explosives in the wreckage of one of the two passenger airliners that crashed simultaneously on Tuesday night, indicating a terrorist act even as an Islamic extremist group claimed that its fighters had hijacked the planes to avenge the deaths of Muslims in the war in Chechnya.

... snip ... snip ...