A year ago, a plane flying 9268 from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg crashed over the Sinai Peninsula. The catastrophe, which became the largest in the history of Soviet and Russian aviation, claimed the lives of 224 people. Most of them are residents of St. Petersburg and Leningrad region. A year after the tragedy, not all the relatives of the victims were able to bury their loved ones. Until now, St. Petersburg residents are waiting for official and final results of the investigation into the disaster from the Egyptian side. And they literally learn to live again.
On October 30, Airbus 321-231 of Kogalymavia airlines safely completed two flights on the route Sharm el-Sheikh - Samara - Sharm el-Sheikh. The handing over crew, PIC Dmitry Zhigalkovich, and co-pilot Yuri Yushko do not make any comments about the aircraft. Already in the early morning of October 31, the plane will have two more regular flights: Sharm el-Sheikh - St. Petersburg - Sharm el-Sheikh. The board now accepts the following crew: experienced 48-year-old Valery Nemov, who has flown over 12,000 hours, and 45-year-old co-pilot Sergei Trukhachev, a former military pilot who served in the Chechen campaign.
217 passengers will be waiting for them on board, most of them are St. Petersburg residents, many returning home with their entire families from a long-awaited vacation in Egypt. At 03:50:06 local time (06:50 Moscow time), flight 7K-9268 takes off from Sharm el-Sheikh, after which, following the air corridor along the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, it begins to climb.
The plane, bypassing the Sinai Peninsula, will have to arrive in St. Petersburg at 12:10 local time, on a regular Saturday afternoon in October, among dozens of other domestic and international flights listed on the Pulkovo board. But neither then, nor after several delays that were displayed on the board, the long-awaited flight 9268 never returned to its homeland.
A few days after the disaster in the skies over Egypt, Flightradar will release data on last flight board A321 over Sinai. According to the report published on the website, the plane took off safely and began to gain altitude, moving parallel to the coast. A few minutes after the liner turned deeper into the peninsula, its altitude began to drop sharply by 6,000 feet. Communication with the plane is lost. The first media reports that the Kogalymavia Airbus plane disappeared from radar began to appear only at 10:18 Moscow time. Short news reports vary significantly: according to the information they contain, there were from 207 to 224 people on board. Some reports say the plane went missing near Larnaca in Cyprus.
Flight 9268 Sharm el-Sheikh - St. Petersburg, operated by Airbus 321 Kogalymavia, took off at 6:21 Moscow time and disappeared from radar screens after 23 minutes, there were 217 passengers and seven crew members on board, reports the Federal Air Transport Agency.
Moments count - two minutes later news appears from Arab media, reporting that a Russian plane crashed in the central part of the Sinai Peninsula. But the data is still scarce and not supported by official confirmation. Hope remains. At 10:42 Reuters and Sky News publish the first reports refuting the plane crash. Publication sources claim that the crew of the missing plane made contact in Turkey. Flightradar does not confirm the fall either, specifying that the airliner sharply decreased in altitude before disappearing from the radar.
The Federal Air Transport Agency reports that they are trying to contact the flight that disappeared from radar. At 11:44 on the Pulkovo online board there is still information that the flight’s arrival from Sharm el-Sheikh is delayed (from 12:10 to 12:20). But already closer to 12, citing sources in the Federal Air Transport Agency, most media outlets publish information about the crash of an airliner over the Sinai Peninsula. In Pulkovo, where by that time the information about the arrival had disappeared from the display, the emergency headquarters began operational work, and the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations was preparing two aircraft to be sent to Egypt. Later, the department decides to send five special aircraft to Egypt.
Search teams discovered the crash site among the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula. The wreckage of the airliner was scattered over 13 kilometers.
The search operation took place in difficult conditions: North Sinai is a closed zone, and for a year now the Egyptian army has been conducting a large-scale operation there against militants of an extremist group associated with ISIS (the group’s activities are prohibited in Russia by decision of the Supreme Court. - Prim. ed.). It was the Egyptian military, patrolling the territory, who were the first to discover the wreckage of the airliner. The plane crashed in the En-Nahal mountain range, a deserted, waterless and deserted place. According to clarified and officially confirmed information, there were 224 people on board the plane, including seven crew members. According to the Federal Air Transport Agency, among the passengers on the plane there were 192 adults and 25 children. They all died.
Dear Amalia, 28 years ago you gave the world a wonderful boy. Every mother dreams of such a son and every girl dreams of such a reliable and loving man nearby. A year ago, photographs of all the dead were published, I immediately remembered Armen’s face, it attracts the eye with its kind and pure smile, this is the face of a purposeful and very decent young man. I didn’t know him, but I’m incredibly sorry for Armen. Such boys were obliged to live and give the world beautiful children. But, unfortunately, another world, black and evil, took his life. Strength and health to you. Thank you for such a son. Insanely sorry... In loving memory of Armen and happy heavenly birthday. (Tatyana Svetlova, St. Petersburg) - such letters, a year after the tragedy, continue to be received by the relatives of those killed in terrible plane crash over Sinai.
On October 26, a few days before the plane crash, Armen Vishnev, a native of the city of Pushkin, who served in the Federal Customs Service, turned 27 years old. Armen flew to Egypt to rest, in one of his last messages he asked his mother not to be bored, because the separation would not be long, he promised to bring a magnet or, as a joke, even a whole camel.
A year after the tragedy, Amalia carefully preserves all the photographs and messages of her son. Concerned residents of other regions of Russia and dozens of other loved ones of the victims of the plane crash help her to honor the memory and overcome the grief of loss. The tragedy united more than 36 thousand people online. Through the efforts of St. Petersburg residents, the Flight 9268 charitable foundation was created, which now provides support to people who lost loved ones in the disaster over Sinai.
The main goal for which we have united is to perpetuate the memory of our relatives in those things that we are able to accomplish: creating a memorial and temple, preserving the memories of our loved ones, helping the families of the victims who need financial, legal and psychological support. Our foundation is not just an attempt to rally around a common cause. This is a protest against terrorism, murder, cruelty and injustice. A big journey begins with a small step. And we are taking this step all together - this is precisely the goal set for ourselves by people whose lives were divided by the tragedy into before and after the disaster.
Fund group on social networks has long become a kind of spontaneous book of memory, where you can find out the latest information about the progress of the investigation into the tragedy, again see photos of all those who did not return home from the ill-fated flight, and also provide all possible assistance to family and friends.
And it’s not just about money: any support is valuable, because even after a year, practice shows: time does not heal, and the long investigation and difficult bureaucratic procedures associated with the payment of compensation only aggravate the already ongoing pain of loss.
The tragedy cut short the lives of entire families: Olga and Yuri Shein and three of their children died in the disaster. The whole country from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok was shocked to the core by the love story of Alexandra Chernova and Evgeny Yavsin who were on board the A321: Evgeny specially saved money to take Sasha to Egypt and propose to her there. And dozens of other life-long stories that were so unfairly and suddenly ended on that ill-fated October morning. Most of the passengers of the crashed A321 were residents of the North-West of Russia, mainly from St. Petersburg, Leningrad, Novgorod and Pskov regions. Also on board were four citizens of Ukraine and one citizen of Belarus. Flight 9268" of Irina Zakharova, the remains, which are now stored in the crematorium on Shafirovsky Prospekt, are not subject to examination. However, families still have hope of receiving fragments of the bodies of their dead relatives: in Egypt, after the completion of the main stage of the investigation, new remains were discovered, they are now being studied.
The report of the international commission investigating the crash of the Russian A321 over the Sinai has not yet been made public: on the preliminary results of its work (and this is a year after the investigation), according to a source in the Ministry civil aviation Egypt, experts will tell you “within 60 days.”
Certain technical analyzes are now being carried out, after which a preliminary report will be made public, a representative of the Egyptian Ministry of Aviation told the media on October 26.
Let us remind you that representatives from six countries are taking part in the investigation into the causes of the disaster: Egypt, Russia, as well as specialists from France, Germany, Ireland and the USA. Its progress in accordance with the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is supervised by the Egyptian aviation authorities. One of the first versions of the disaster was the assumption that the Russian plane could have been shot down by a missile fired by militants operating in the North Sinai region. However, this assumption was almost immediately refuted by experts as untenable. For a long time, experts worked on another probable cause of the crash of the Kogalymavia airliner - a version of technical problems. This was announced on the day of the crash by the operational services of Egypt following a preliminary inspection of the wreckage of the plane. At the initial stage of the investigation, Russian experts were also inclined towards this version.
Representatives of Kogalymavia (Metrojet trademark) were the first to refute it: already on November 2, the airline’s press secretary, Alexander Smirnov, ruled out a technical malfunction and pilot error as the causes of the disaster and announced an “external influence” on the airliner. He stressed that the aircraft, which the airline owned under lease, was 100% ready to fly and that its crew was “very experienced.” The company representative supported his speech with certificates received by the airline at the beginning of 2015. He also stated that the plane's engine was checked on October 26, five days before the crash.
On November 7, the IAC reported that until the recording on the recorders stopped, the flight was proceeding as normal; no information about failures of the aircraft’s systems and components was recorded.
At a meeting in the Kremlin on November 16, the head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, officially announced for the first time that the cause of the crash was a terrorist attack. Versions about third-party interference with links to various sources were previously published in foreign and Russian media. - We can definitely say that this is terrorist attack“, Bortnikov said, adding that traces of foreign-made explosives were found on the wreckage and things. - According to our experts, an improvised explosive device with a power of up to 1 kg in TNT equivalent went off on board the aircraft during the flight, which resulted in the aircraft falling apart in the air, which explains the scattering of parts of the aircraft fuselage over a long distance.
Bortnikov explained that the conclusions were made by specialists after a thorough examination of personal belongings, luggage of passengers and parts castaway liner.
It was initially believed that the explosive device was planted under the passenger seat of 30A or 31A. However, in September 2016, data from the commission were made public, according to which the explosion occurred in the tail section, in the compartment for oversized luggage. A timed bomb was hidden among the baby strollers. Experts came to this conclusion after analyzing the layout of the collected fragments of the A321 in the hangar at Cairo airport. Due to the explosion, the plane lost its tail section, after which it went into an uncontrolled dive.
The investigation into the tragedy is progressing very slowly, and all the circumstances of what happened are still unknown. Responsibility for the crash Russian plane The Egyptian cell of the Islamic State group banned in Russia almost immediately took over. Airport employees could have brought an explosive device on board - numerous evidence of the poor level of security in air harbor immediately after the tragedy, the Internet was flooded: many tourists said that for a small bribe they calmly carried bags with things through all the security cordons, and no one inspected them. However, the Egyptian side for a long time insisted on the version of technical malfunction, refusing to acknowledge the possibility of a terrorist attack on board the airliner. In December 2015, the Technical Investigation Committee issued a statement saying that Cairo had found no signs of terrorist involvement in the Airbus 321 crash. It was not until February 2016 that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi admitted for the first time that a Russian plane had crashed in the skies above. Sinai was a terrorist attack. The head of state stated this at the presentation of a report on the country’s development until 2030.
On August 30, 2016, it was announced that Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, who was allegedly the organizer of the terrorist attack, had been killed in Aleppo, Syria.
Air traffic with Egypt, which was stopped immediately after the A321 crash, has not yet been restored. In accordance with the official commentary of the Russian Ministry of Transport, the situation will not change until all concerns in the field of aviation security are eliminated.
Making a decision on the resumption of air traffic between Russia and Egypt is possible only after all the problems in the field of aviation and transport security. It is worth noting that the Egyptian side has made significant progress in resolving these issues and the interaction between the two countries is quite constructive, the department noted on October 25.
The Garden of Memory", which will be located on Rumbolovskaya Mountain in Vsevolozhsk, will be completed and fresh flowers will bloom here. A corridor of slabs on which, in accordance with the design of the monument, will be the names of all those killed in the A321 plane crash, as well as metal structures in the form of pipes on which the wind will play, anyone who drives along the Road of Life will see it.
On Monday, October 31, a memorial service for the victims of the A321 crash in the skies over the Sinai Peninsula will be held at St. Isaac's Cathedral. In memory of those who never returned home to their family and friends, the cathedral bell will ring 224 times.
On October 31, the Airbus-321 airliner of the Kogalymavia airline, which operated flight 9268 Sharm el-Sheikh - St. Petersburg, took off from Egypt at 6.21 (Moscow time) and 23 minutes later. There were 217 passengers and seven crew members on board. Wreckage of Russian civil aircraft discovered in the center of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.
On August 16, in the Indonesian province of Papua, an ATR of Trigana Air Service, flying from the provincial capital of Jayapura to Oxybil Airport, collided with a mountain. There were 49 passengers and five crew members on board the plane. They all died.
On June 30, a four-engine Hercules C-130B military transport aircraft, manufactured more than half a century ago by the American airline Lockheed, in the southwestern part of the capital of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra, about two minutes after takeoff from Medan's Soewondo Air Force Base, having flown just about five kilometers. Just before the crash, the pilot reported engine problems to air traffic controllers and the C-130 crashed as it was turning around to return to base. There were 122 people on board the crashed plane, they died. Another 19 people died on the ground.
On March 24, in the south of France, in the Alpes-Haute-Provence department, an Airbus A320 aircraft owned by Germanwings was flying from Barcelona (Spain) to Dusseldorf (Germany). There were 142 passengers and eight crew members on board the airliner. They all died. Recordings from the discovered black boxes indicate that the crash was caused by the co-pilot, German citizen Andreas Lubitz.
On February 4 in Taiwan, an ATR 72 aircraft took off from Taipei Songshan Airport in the direction of the Kinmen Archipelago, Keelung. There were 53 passengers and five crew members on board. Among the passengers were two children. As a result of the incident, 43 people were killed and 15 were injured. In addition, debris from the plane hit a taxi car, injuring two more people. According to Taiwan's Civil Aviation Administration, minutes before the crash, the plane's pilot issued distress signals to air traffic controllers, indicating engine problems.
On January 26 in Spain, a Greek Air Force aircraft participating in NATO's Tactical Leadership Program was unable to gain altitude at takeoff and in an area where other aircraft were located. He rammed several of them. As a result of the disaster, 11 people were killed and another 20 were injured.
On January 18, in Syria, an army cargo plane near the Abu al-Zuhur airport in Idlib province due to bad weather. At least 35 military personnel were killed.
2014
On December 28, an AirAsia Indonesia plane was flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, in the province of Banka Belitung. There were 162 people on board (the vast majority were Indonesian citizens), all of them died. Indonesian authorities reported the discovery in the sea off the coast borneo islands plane wreckage and dead bodies.
On August 10, in Iran, not far from Tehran Mehrabad airport, a small passenger plane of the Iranian modification An-140 of Taban Airlines was flying from Tehran to the Iranian city of Tabas. There were 40 passengers and eight crew members on board. The plane crashed immediately after takeoff from the airport near the highway. During takeoff, the car's engine caught fire, the plane abruptly changed direction and, even before hitting the ground, fell apart. Human.
On July 24, McDonnell 83 was en route from the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, to Algiers. The flight was carried out by Air Algerie, which leased the aircraft from the Spanish Swiftair. 116 people died. Among possible reasons disasters are called terrorist attacks and weather conditions - it is known that the plane deviated from the original route due to an approaching thunderstorm.
On July 23, an ATR-72 passenger turboprop aircraft operated by TransAsia Airways in Taiwan. The plane unsuccessfully tried to land at the airport in the city of Magong in the Penghu archipelago. The pilots requested a second landing attempt, after which the aircraft lost contact with air traffic controllers. The plane crashed into the ground in the area settlement Hussy. In doing so, he damaged two houses that caught fire. There were 54 passengers and four crew members on board the plane. , 10 injured.
July 17 in the Donetsk region of Ukraine Amsterdam - Kuala Lumpur. There were 298 people on board the liner, all of them died. Kyiv blamed the militia for the crash, but they said they did not have the means to shoot down an aircraft at such an altitude. All major world politicians are calling for a thorough investigation of the tragedy.
On the night of March 8, a Boeing 777-200 Malaysia Airlines Airlines with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board, flying from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to Beijing (China),
Exactly four years ago, an Airbus A320 plane crashed over the Sinai Peninsula, which was carrying Russian tourists from Egypt to their homeland. All passengers and crew members died before reaching home. Among the dead were 25 children, including a small resident of Gatchina Darina Gromova, which the Russians called the Main Passenger. Authorities in several countries are still investigating the causes of the plane crash. In terms of the number of victims, the disaster is the largest in Russian aviation. But nothing can bring back innocent people. the site remembers the victims of the disaster and the chronology of events over the Sinai Peninsula
Developments
Airplane Russian airline Kogalymavia flew to Sharm el-Sheikh on the eve of the tragedy. On October 30, he performed two passenger flights on the route Sharm el-Sheikh - Samara - Sharm el-Sheikh. The commander of the aircraft, Dmitry Zhigalkovich, and co-pilot Yuri Yushko later said that the flight took place as usual, and no problems arose in the air. On October 31, the airliner came under the control of 48-year-old commander Valery Nemov and 45-year-old co-pilot Sergei Trukhachev. Nemov had more than 12 thousand hours of flight practice under his belt, almost 4 thousand of which were at the controls of an Airbus A321. The plane passed technical control at Sharm el-Sheikh airport and took off safely.
Photo: flight path of flight 7K-9268 / flightradar24.com
Charter flight 7K-9268 route Sharm el-Sheikh - St. Petersburg was supposed to arrive at Northern capital at 12:10 p.m., a little more than five hours into the flight. At 06:50 Moscow time, the plane took off from the Egyptian airport and headed along the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba. After 12 minutes, the aircraft turned left on a course of 340° to cross the Sinai Peninsula. When the board rose to a height of 9411 meters, its speed began to drop sharply. According to the website Flightradar24, at 06:13 the Airbus A320 began to lose altitude at a speed of 30 m/s. At approximately 07:14, flight 7K-9268 crashed in the central part of the Sinai Peninsula. The wreckage of the plane was scattered over a radius of 13 km. total area the search for the bodies of the dead and the remains of the airliner amounted to 30 km. All 224 passengers died.
The first reports about the disappearance of the airliner from radars appeared in the Russian media at about 10:20 Moscow time. Initially it was reported that communication was interrupted near the Cypriot city of Larnaca. International publications Reuters and Sky News, citing their own sources, reported that the flight crashed. At this time, relatives of passengers begin to be notified about the loss of the airliner. People, hoping for a miracle, go to Pulkovo to meet a delayed flight. Charter 7K-9268 was still listed on the information board, which reported a ten minute delay.
“I was just at the airport that day and found people waiting for the plane. I was flying to study then, and I had problems getting my luggage. I arrived, but that flight did not. I remember the number of this plane on the board with the red inscription “detained”. I had just left the airport when literally 15 minutes later the crash was announced. A few hours later, photographs from the airport began to appear online. I look, and there are all these people, many of whom I saw at the entrance, or at Starbucks, or somewhere else. People who came to wait for their relatives"
Soon the hopes of the relatives were dashed: Egyptian authorities reported that the wreckage of the plane was found 50 km from Nehel, in the province of North Sinai. The airport management, together with the Federal Air Transport Agency, set up mobile medical headquarters. People were provided with psychological assistance. The emergency headquarters began work. Rescuers constantly informed relatives. But the latter were already beginning to understand that their relatives could no longer be returned.
Photo: wreckage of flight 7K-9268 / life.ru Investigation
When information about the crash was confirmed, the Ministry of Emergency Situations sent five special aircraft to Egypt to deliver the bodies of the victims to their homeland. The black boxes, which were practically undamaged, were found on the day of the tragedy. The decryption was carried out by the Egyptian side. Representatives from six countries took part in the investigation: Russia, Egypt, the USA, Germany, France and Ireland. The commission also included consultants from Airbus.
The wreckage found 13 km from the crash site gave rise to claims that the plane was destroyed in the air. In this regard, versions began to appear about a possible explosion of the plane. Moreover, the possibility of both a bomb explosion in the cabin and a missile strike from the ground could not be ruled out. However, Egypt called any versions premature and unsupported by facts. On November 16, the head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, said that the plane exploded as a result of a terrorist attack. On the bodies of the passengers, security forces found remains of explosives not produced in Russia. The Egyptian authorities assured that they would take the FSB study into account, but did not draw any conclusions. One of the groups controlled by ISIS (an organization banned in Russia) took responsibility for the terrorist attack. An examination of the wreckage of the airliner showed that the bomb exploded within rows 30-31. Presumably it was laid at site 31A. However, in September 2016, experts said that the bomb was hidden in the tail of the plane among baby strollers.
Photo: wreckage of flight 7K9268 / vebus.ru Until now the authorities African country did not initiate a case under the article “Terrorism”. In July 2017, a source close to Russian-Egyptian negotiations on aviation security told RIA-Novosti that Egypt does not want to investigate the case under the article “Terrorism” in order not to pay compensation to the relatives of the victims. In this case, it will become clear that the disaster occurred due to shortcomings of the local security services.
Victims
224 people died from the explosion, burns and falling from a great height. On board were mainly Russian citizens - 219 people. Also, four citizens of Ukraine and one citizen of Belarus were flying back from vacation. The oldest victim was 77 years old, the youngest was only 10 months old. 48 people who did not return home were from the Leningrad region. On November 1, 2015, mourning was declared in Russia, which lasted three days. In the Leningrad region, all entertainment events have been canceled until November 4.
Among the dead were children, grandchildren, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. Many of the passengers posted photos online before the flight. Some flew to Egypt with their family, some to celebrate their wedding anniversary, and some to propose to their girlfriend. There were also those who went on vacation abroad for the first time. But no one was destined to return to their home.
The most famous publication is a photograph of the daughter of the Gromov couple. Little Darina flew with her parents to warm Egypt for the first time. The girl’s mother Tatyana Gromova captioned the photo “ Main passenger" Under this name, the recording spread throughout the world and became a symbol of the tragedy. Darina was the smallest passenger on the plane. Her body was found 35 km from the crash site.
Spouses Olga and Yuri Shein flew to Egypt to celebrate ten years of marriage. They took three children with them: 11-year-old Zhenya, 10-year-old Lena and 3-year-old Nastya. A few minutes before landing, Olga posted a photo of her husband and her youngest daughter on her VKontakte page. The caption to the photo reads: "We're flying home." Sheina will never see her home.
Photo: personal archive of Olga Sheina Armen Vishnev flew to Egypt to celebrate his birthday. A few days before the tragedy, on October 26, he turned 27 years old. He worked in the Federal Customs Service near St. Petersburg, in Pushkin. Armen’s mother told reporters that in one of his last messages he urged her not to get bored. Armen promised to bring a souvenir with him.
Volkhov resident Dmitry Bogdanov took his children, 10-year-old Anton, 22-year-old Nastya and 24-year-old Lera, to the sea for a vacation. The mother of a large family died of cancer several years earlier. The children wrote on their pages on the social network “Goodbye, Russia!”, “Goodbye, cold Russia” and “Rainy St. Petersburg, good-bye.” They will never see their homeland again.
The young couple Alexandra Chernovaya and Evgeny Yavsin went on their first joint trip abroad. A surprise awaited Alexandra on vacation: Evgeniy specifically saved money for trips to propose to his beloved at sea.
Photo: personal archive of Alexandra Chernova Evgenia Murashova from Pskov died in the disaster. She flew to Egypt with her mother Irina Pikaleva. Evgenia has an 8-year-old daughter at home. A few days before her tragic death, she posted an audio recording on her page entitled “I know I won’t come back.”
Photo: screenshot from Ekaterina Murashova’s page Along with all these innocent people, hundreds of others died. Hundreds, if not thousands, of relatives were left with broken hearts. Many of them still have not been able to identify their loved ones, which means they keep a grain of hope in their hearts. The unidentified remains of victims of the Sinai disaster were buried in a mass grave at one of the memorial cemeteries in St. Petersburg.
Memory
On Rumbolova Mountain in Vsevolozhsk on the second anniversary of the “Garden of Memory” tragedy. The project was financed from the regional budget and the budget of Vsevolozhsk. The names of all the dead passengers of flight 7K-9268 are immortalized on a granite slab. Also on this day, all the bells of the churches of St. Petersburg will strike 224 times, in honor of each person who died.
Photo: “Memory Garden” On October 28, the monument “Folded Wings” was unveiled in St. Petersburg. The memorial was erected at the burial site of unidentified Airbus passengers. 25 white balloons were launched into the sky, symbolizing the children who died in the disaster.
Photo: “Folded Wings” / Administration of St. Petersburg Every year, events in memory of the victims of the Sinai disaster are held throughout the country.
After the tragedy, activists created the Flight 9268 charitable foundation. The fund is supported by the administration of the Leningrad region, the administration of St. Petersburg, the Russian Union of Rescuers and the Kuznetsov Guild. In February 2016, with the assistance of the foundation, more than 80% of the families of relatives of the victims wrote in support of the idea of building a temple and monument in memory of the dead passengers and crew of flight 9268. The Church of the Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica will be built in the Baltic Pearl multifunctional complex.
Photo: Draft design of the Church of the Holy Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica in the Baltic Pearl multifunctional complex / flight9268.ru 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 operating a charter 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 the terrorists mined the oversized luggage compartment in the tail of the plane, hiding an explosive device between baby strollers and wicker furniture carried by tourists.
Russia and the CIA believe that the explosion on board was organized by Wilayat Sinai (until 2014 - Ansar Bayt 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 investigation materials. Another complaint concerned Ingosstrakh. The appeal alleged that the company fraudulently obtains from relatives of the deceased statements limiting 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 Russian structures refuses to discuss the issue of resuming flights 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.”
Experts are still arguing about what became cause of the plane crash October 31, 2015 in Egypt. On this moment There are several versions of what happened, but none of them have been reliably confirmed. It is known that it fell apart in the air at a high altitude. This version, which was presented by the IAC, was confirmed by the Federal Air Transport Agency. This is evidenced by the nature of the scattering of debris in the area.
The plane, which was flying from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, crashed for unknown reasons on the morning of October 31. 21 minutes after takeoff, the plane reached an altitude of 10,210 meters and a speed of 748 km/h, and just a minute later it reached 8,649 meters and its speed was 172 km/h. 22 minutes after takeoff, the airliner stopped transmitting data, and its mark disappeared from radar. The wreckage of an Airbus A321 was found on Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The plane crash site is an ellipse 8 kilometers long and 6 kilometers wide. This suggests that the destruction of the aircraft occurred at a high altitude. A thorough study of the plane crash site is currently underway. The “black boxes” were found, but decryption has not yet begun.
Experts, having analyzed the data available at the moment, suggest three versions of what happened. According to experts, the plane's body burst due to pressure drop. The sudden pressure drop that led to the depressurization and destruction of the airliner could have occurred due to detached engine parts, fatigue cracks in the supporting structures, or due to a shock wave from an explosive device. To establish the exact cause, confirm or refute these assumptions, experts must collect all the wreckage of the airbus and display it in the hangar. At this stage of the investigation, neither version can yet be ruled out. It is also worth noting that experts refuted the version that the plane could have been shot down from the ground using MANPADS, since the plane was flying at an altitude unattainable for this weapon. However, experts are in no hurry to completely discount the terrorist attack on the A321, since it is unknown whether radical militants have more powerful air defense systems.
Experts pay special attention to the incident that occurred with this aircraft in 2001. Then the Airbus A321, when landing in Cairo, hit its tail hard on runway. After this, the plane was bought by the Turkish airline Onur Air, and in 2012 the plane was put into operation by Kogalymavia. Experts do not exclude that the damage that was received in 2001 could have played a fatal role in the crash on October 31, 2015. Hidden damage in the tail section, which was invisible from the outside, could fail under the influence of time or under the influence of an increase in load, as a result of which the plane began to fall apart.
The plane crashed on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt on October 31, 2015. Airbus 321, which was flying from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, crashed 23 minutes after takeoff. 217 passengers and seven crew members died.
