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UK and US Suspect That ISIS Bomb Took Down Flight 9268 (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader writes with a report from CNN that U.S. and UK intelligence agencies believe it is more likely than not that the destruction on October 31st of a Russian A321 jetliner in Sinai "was most likely caused by a bomb on the plane planted by ISIS or an affiliate of the group." Kogalymavia Flight 9268 fell apart in flight, killing all aboard. From CNN's article:
The British government announced Wednesday that it had "become concerned that the plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device." A formal conclusion has not been reached by the intelligence communities of either country. An UK aviation team is travelling to inspect the Sharm airport to look at whether there were proper security measures at the airport and the various scenarios by which an explosive device could have made it to the Russian airliner "including a person or in cargo," according to the British transport minister.
Both Russian and Egyptian officials discount the claim, but detecting bombs is hard.
Yeah, those Russians are so shitty at technology. That's why they've had almost every space "first" and are the only nation on earth still consistently capable of sending men into space (and with an almost spotless cosmonaut safety record for the last 40 years, unlike some other nations).
'Merica!! USA! USA! USA!!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Don't discount the possibility of an accident. Something very similar happened to China Airlines flight 611
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
A tail section badly repaired after a minor accident came off in mid-air. The airplane spun out of control and disintegrated before crashing into the ground. That fits this accident very well.
Without conclusive evidence of a bomb, I would be very careful to scream terrorism. Terrorists claiming responsibility doesn't mean a thing without evidence.
Umm, you DO know, don't you, that the Russians lost two capsules full of men in ~120 flights, right?
Umm, you DO know what 40 years is, don't you?
Who cares how many years it spans - it's the number of flights that matters. If they sit there for six months NOT flying, then having zero flight deaths during those six months isn't exactly a point of pride. Deaths per astronaut flight is a lot more meaningful, statistically, and as a measure of competence. Regardless, we're splitting hairs. The point is that nothing about their survived hours in flight paints a picture of the Russians being wildly more successful in that regard. They do, though, have an administration that's actually keeping their people in the business of putting people in space - though they're doing a fair bit of that with other people's money.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
but then why are the British and Americans so certain of evidence of a bomb declaring they detected a heat flash and cancelling flights and so forth?
Opportunism. A chance to reassure their people that they were right all along and provide the pretext for even more invasive surveillance. So much the better if no-one can prove otherwise.
Maybe, but there's similarly a risk for the US and UK in this case. If they insist it's a bomb it harms Egyptian tourism which is a major source of income for them, and they're already facing a fairly strong degree of risk in isolating Egypt. As soon as the Americans distanced themselves from Sisi when he seized power by stalling the further AH-64 Apache sales, he went wandering straight over to Russia. The last thing they want is to push Egypt into the arms of Russia when Syria, Iraq, and Iran have already moved that way. It would give Putin an axis of control right from Africa to Asia, and would provider further access to everything from the Med to the Indian Ocean to the Caspian and give Putin influence over the Suez.
Couple this with the fact that Putin wants nothing more than to put egg in the face of America and Britain and if his (and even 3rd party such as the involved French) investigators come out and say there was no bomb, then the British and American governments are only going to end up hurting that particular cause and face even more complaints of crying wolf than they already do.
I know the British and Americans are keen on their fear mongering to push anti-terrorism legislation, but I'm not convinced it's a meme that holds every single time such a thing happens. There's way too much for them to risk losing in being wrong in this particular case, it's not something where it's a domestic incident and the results have no impact outside their borders. The result of being wrong in this particular case has geopolitical consequences and that makes it a much more awkward game to play.
There could be many explanations. They could have a agent at the airport who only has access to Russian flights - or some other explanation that fits in the "opportunist" category. They could be more worried about Russian involvement since the regime was about to fall until the Russians stepped in, or some other simple explanation that fits into the "motivation to attack the Russians" category. They might fear a physical on-the-ground American presence as the result of an act of terror, whereas with the Russians this has already happened. That could fall in the "strategy" category. Who knows? But it is at least plausible.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Devil's advocate here (and I cannot believe that I'm mentioning Putin a positive light.)
Putin wouldn't have to do anything for this to happen. It was going to happen, sooner or later, and Daesh was quite prompt to take credit for it, which they likely wouldn't do in another case.
Daesh made a big mistake. Putin keeps Russia from being overrun by his image as a strongman. Unlike the US where Daesh can hold operations at will with no fear of reprisal, Russian pride is at stake here, and Russians will not let a jetliner full of citizens go un-avenged (unlike the US where it is blamed on "guns" or ethnic groups). Bringing in the Russians means that a true army, but one trained to fight wars (and not win no-bid contracts), will be entering this conflict theater.
But Putin doesn't want to bomb Daesh. At least, not yet. Most of the bombing sorties Russia has made so far have been in support of loyalist Syrian forces against the more moderate rebels. As long as Daesh remains active in Iraq and Syria and the US stays impotent to stop them(stop pussyfooting around and trying to protect the ineffective Iraqi government; arm,support, and train the Kurds because they're the only ones with the balls to stand up to Daesh) it drives them closer to Russia and, in the case of Syria, Iran. The whole point is to erode US influence in the region. Only until that happens will Russia truly go after Daesh (they also get the added bonus that radical Chechens are currently going to Syria to fight with Daesh instead of causing trouble in Russia which has been a big source of internal trouble for Russia). So Putin has no reason for any maskirovka-esque self bombing, and even if it was a bomb it is Russia's self-interest to deny it as much as possible otherwise they might be forced to have to engage Daesh.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Not after the fact. If there was an explosion inside the cabin or luggage compartment, there will be internal paneling, structural members, etc., blackened and bent and peppered with explosive ejecta littering the deserts of the Sinai. That debris will look radically different from a structural failure due to metal fatigue, composite fairlures, bad repairs, etc., and will be in the wrong place to be the result of a fuel tank explosion. (And, an internal bomb will bend things out, while a missile strike will bend things in.) Making this determination in a case like this (where all of the debris should be easy to find) should be a straightforward case of air crash forensics.
How correct you are. One of the most interesting aviation photographs I've ever seen was a re-assembly of the Pan Am Lockerbie 747 that was brought down by a bomb over Scotland. The investigation showed that a bomb located on the left hand side of the plane probably brought down the aircraft. The investigators then took all the pieces of the left hand side of the plane that they could find and laboriously pieced them together like a jig saw puzzle on a huge scaffolding. The explosion effects (metal ripped and bent outwards) and hole made by the explosion were obvious from the re-construction.
Gordon
I think the exact wording from the US was that they detected an air based heat flash. Presumably it wouldn't be too difficult (someone else here no doubt has the knowledge to clarify) to determine the difference between such an event at 30,000ft, and one at ground level. I'd have thought that's a reasonable enough altitude difference to fathom from the satellite data whether the event happened in the air, or on the ground.
It's also worth noting that the plane blew up some distance from where the bulk of it ended up on the ground too, and as such it's possible that the air based heat flash was detected a mile or so away from the location that the fuel ended up such that if the location data for the heat flash is reasonable that in itself would be enough to separate the two incidents.
CNN unsurprisingly had been running hard with the bomb narrative even before they had any evidence of any kind to support it.
If people in the US government are making the claim a bomb took down flight 9268 then why the hell does this information have to be unofficially leaked to the media with no attribution? Is there no better way to communicate? The same person apparently hedges by saying "there has not been a formal conclusion" and uses weasel words like "definite feeling" ... WTF does that even mean?
The bomb narrative happens to be the most profitable one for both stated US interests against Russia's Syria adventures and CNN's ratings with all assertions carefully constructed such that they get to walk away when they are proven to be wrong.
I have no faith or reason to believe any of this conjecturbation. I'll wait for investigation by the grownups actually doing the work.
No matter how much I tell myself that correlation is not causation, this just looks like too much of a coincidence.
Then you should also ask yourself how much Snowden contributed to those people being killed when he compromised the intelligence gathering which was designed to head off exactly this type of mass murder.