What happened in the Sinai Peninsula?

Shortly after the Russian A321 crashed in the Sinai, some terrorist group bragged that they'd done it. naturally they don't have the missiles necessary to do so. A shoulder-launched SAM (Surface-to-Air-Missile) can't even travel the 30+ K feet of altitude the plane was at. So I discounted it as opportunistic BS fed to the media.

But as I learned the plane broke up in mid-air, I began to suspect a bomb.

There are other things that can bring down a plane in mid-air, but they're rare.

There's structural failure. This happened to a JAL B747 which had struck its tail on a runway years earlier, and hadn't been properly repaired. the Russian Airbus, coincidentally, had a tail strike some years ago. An improper repair can take years, even decades, to fail. So that's a possibility.

Related there's metal fatigue. This is a well-known problem, which brought down several of the very first jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet. Since then, though, metal fatigue incidents have been few. There was a rash in the 80s, including an Aloha Airlines 737 which lost half the fuselage, yet managed to land safely with only one fatality.

An explosion could bring a plane down, too. but "explosion" does not equal "bomb." Cargo can blow up, too. This is not likely even with hazardous materials, and no airliners carry such materials knowingly. Still, something might have slipped past, though that's very improbable from a resort town far from industrial and commercial centers. Or perhaps an electrical failure mixed with fuel, as happened with the TWA 747 over the Northeast. Or en exploding engine ( remember the BA 777 in Vegas?)

Less likely, a meteorite may have struck the plane. I know of no precedents for this.

That's about all I can think of.

I'd lay 3 to 1 odds it was a bomb on the plane.

Quote: Wizard

I'd lay 3 to 1 odds it was a bomb on the plane.

I'd lay odds if it was a bomb, it wasn't smuggled in with the luggage or by a passenger.

Quote: Nareed

There's structural failure. This happened to a JAL B747 which had struck its tail on a runway years earlier, and hadn't been properly repaired. the Russian Airbus, coincidentally, had a tail strike some years ago. An improper repair can take years, even decades, to fail. So that's a possibility.

The JALB747 took a half hour to crash, and they found four survivors the next morning. It looks as if others died at night because the search was abandoned until morning. The maintenance engineer also killed himself.


A structural failure that destroys the plane in seconds is incredibly difficult. I can't even think of one.

For that matter, it is probably above the skill of most bomb makers to bring down a plane instantly.

Quote: Pacomartin

A structural failure that destroys the plane in seconds is incredibly difficult. I can't even think of one.

I guess the TWA 747 wasn't strictly speaking a structural failure.

But there was the AA 757 flying to the Dominican Republic. The tail fin snapped off and the plane went down. I think there was time for a "Mayday" call, though. Ditto with the 737s in the 80s whose rudders got stuck in a hard turn, though that was more of a mechanical failure. Neither of these broke up in mid-air, but the time from failure to crash was swift.

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For that matter, it is probably above the skill of most bomb makers to bring down a plane instantly.

It depends. If they had help from someone in the airport familiar with planes and with access to them, placing a bomb next to a fuel tank isn't that hard. I refer you to Pan Am 103.

Another remote possibility is wake turbulence. But 1) we'd have heard if a large jet was flying that route at around that time, 2) with 30,000 or so ft. to recover a crash isn't likely, and 3) it wouldn't have broken up the plane either.

No one in the area seems to want the truth to emerge. The last takeoff was from a notoriously lax airport wherein the going rate for letting a bag pass the security check is ten dollars. A bomb in the galley area or food storage area would bring the plane down rapidly enough.

Egypt is poor and all institutions bloated.