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Terrorists suspected to be behind crash of Russian airliner carrying 77 persons

In a suspected terrorist attack, a Russian airliner with at least 77 people on board, mostly Israelis, on a flight from Tel Aviv crashed into the Black Sea after a mid-air explosion on Thursday.

The plane, a Tupolev TU-154, belonging to Sibir Airlines was headed for the Siberian city of Novosibirsk when it disappeared from radar screens, 180 km south of the Russian Black Sea resort of Adler, Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported.

Russian authorities have mobilised all available resources including military aircraft and naval vessels to search for possible survivors from among the passengers and 12 crew members and search for the Black Box of the crashed plane.

Four bodies have been pulled out from the sea.

The pilot of an Armenian AN-24 aircraft flying in the same area reported an explosion on board the ill-fated plane after which its burning debris fell into the sea.

Russian security service FSB spokesman Alexender Zdanovich was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass, "In the course of the flight, the crew had not received any threats. We are trying to figure out what happened on board the plane. If it is an act of terrorism, were there terrorists on board or an explosive devise was planted on it."

A report by a television channel about the possibility of an Ukrainian missile having accidentally hit the plane was ruled out by a spokesman of Ukrainian Defence Minister Alexander Kuzmuk.

A NTV correspondent in Crimea had reported that air defence units of the Ukrainian Navy had been conducting exercises to down unmanned drones and fired several S-300 SAM missiles from a local military base at the time the plane crashed.

The Ukrainian spokesman denied that its surface-to-air missile had hit the plane as the airspace in the area of air defence exercise was closed for flights and no plane had entered it, he told from Kiev.

President Vladimir Putin has appointed National Security Council Secretary General Rushailo as the head of an investigation commission to probe into the incident, NTV channel reported.

The accident came three weeks after terrorists hijacked four airliners in the United States and crashed two of them into the World Trade Centre at New York and one at the Pentagon near Washington DC.

The rescuers have recovered fragments of the plane, Mayak radio reported.

In Israel, civil aviation authorities said the aircraft took off from Tel Aviv at 9.58 AM (1328 hours IST).

Israel, which suspended all flights out of Tel Aviv airport 'until further notice', said it was not ruling out 'a terrorist act' in the crash.

"For the time being we are collecting information but we are not excluding any lead, including a terrorist act," a transport ministry official was quoted as saying.

NTV television quoted Israeli airport officials as saying that all passengers on board were Israeli citizens.

But Israeli television said only 51 of the 66 passengers were Israelis.

PTI

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