a321 crash

[berkut]

A Russian A321 has crashed in Egypt,25 minutes after take-off from Sharm El-Sheikh. The destination was St.Petersburg in Russia.

There was 224 people on board.

[legoboyvdlp]

Richard Spencer, The Telegraph (not some tabloid by any means)
Online flight tracking websites show the plane came down in an area of northern Sinai close to the Israeli border. Perhaps more significantly close to the area where the Egyptian army is fighting an insurgency by militants loyal to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.


The crew of the downed plane had made recent complaints about engine trouble, according to Russian news agency RIA Novosti, that cites security sources at Sharm el-Sheikh airport.
"Several times in the last week this plane had requested assistance from technical support because the engine would not start," the source was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

An official NOTAM:
SECURITY EGYPT, NORTHERN SINAI PENINSULA, POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS SITUATION CONTENT: GERMANY ADVISES ALL GERMAN OPERATORS NOT TO PLAN AND CONDUCT FLIGHTS BELOW FL260 DUE TO HAZARDOUS SITUATION IN THE AIRSPACE OF EGYPT, REGION NORTHERN SINAI (FIR CAIRO). POTENTIAL RISK TO AVIATION OVERFLYING THIS AREA BELOW FL260 AND TAKE OFF / LANDING AT ALL AIRPORTS FROM DEDICATED ANTI-AVIATION AND GROUND TO GROUND WEAPONRY. OPERATORS ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO TAKE POTENTIAL RISK INTO ACCOUNT IN THEIR RISK ASSESSMENT AND ROUTEING DECISION. AFFECTED AREA: AREA WITHIN N311400E322200 - N294000E324000 - N293000E345400 N312000E341200 - N311400E322200 EMERGENCY SITUATIONS: IN AN EMERGENCY THAT REQUIRES IMMEDIATE DECISION AND ACTION FOR THE SAFETY OF THE FLIGHT, THE PILOT IN COMMAND MAY DEVIATE FROM THIS NOTAM TO THE EXTENT REQUIRED BY THAT EMERGENCY

However, despite possible terrorist threats by IS or others, according to Prune, the pilot declared a technical emergency.
Anyone have the liveatc logs if they exist for Egypt?

Kogalymavia spokeswoman Oksana Golovina said that there was no reason to blame the pilots for the crash and that the captain of the plane had over 12,000 hours of flying experience,

NTV television station reported (this after a police raid of the airline offices)
According to FlightRadar24, an authoritative Sweden-based flight tracking service, the aircraft was descending rapidly at about 6,000 (2,000 meters) feet per minute before the signal was lost to air traffic control.

The Russian RIA news agency, citing sources at Sharm el-Sheikh, said: "The pilot contacted the dispatcher and reported technical problems, asking for a change of the route and a landing at Cairo airport, after which communication was broken."

The aircraft cited in tracking reports had two engines from the International Aero Engines consortium

The A321 is a 185-seat medium-haul jet -- yet, 224 die?
(

[MIG29pilot]

They can't have that many crew.

[wkitty42]

maybe they're counting some folks on the ground who died when the craft fell on them?

[Gijs]

An A321 can have up to 220 passengers according to the type certification. The 185 figure legoboy posted is for a typical 2-class configuration, and does not include crew. This flight had 217 pax and 7 crew, so that's perfectly plausible in a dense single class config (which this aircraft has/had).

[berkut]

According to the FlightRadar24,there was a theory that the aircraft was shot down by some sort of the SAM.

As the time and investigation goes,that theory goes out slowly.

This crash reminds me of the AF447,quite a lot.

[MIG29pilot]

What would that indicate?

[legoboyvdlp]

This picture is touching.

AND SHE IS DEAD NOW!
SHE DID NOT DESERVE TO DIE!?
WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

By the way, apparently HOM0001 and Jabberwocky are making a pretty indepth analysis, so if you don't mind visiting, they can be found on thejabberwocky.net

[HJ1AN]

The plane had engine problems previosuly. I'm just totally guessing here, but if an engine blew chunks into the fuselage at 30k ft, it's not likely to come down in one piece is it?

[HJ1AN]

BTW, anyone noticed that the trend now for air accidents have flipped to cruise, when previosuly cruise is the safest part of the flight?

I just read that the crash area is over 16 square kilometers. That points to an in-flight breakup to me.

And RIP. I am really sad that things like this won't stop happening.

[Johan G]

This morning I had another look at the Wikipedia article and also took a look at the Aviation Herald article.

It seems that the wreckage is separated to two separate debris fields, with the tail in the "aft" one. There have been some speculation that a tail strike a year or so earlier could have caused increased fatiguing and that it could be the cause or part of the cause of the crash. To me I would not seem entirely implausible given that such things have happen previously (in particular the Japan Airlines Flight 123 comes to mind). Also, I would expect that there would be a nose down trim at cruise airspeed, which, together with the tail breaking off, probably could explain the steep 5000 ft climb before the slow descent.

In any case and thankfully, both the wreckage, flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR) have been found, so I think there is a very high probability that the investigation will find out exactly what happened, and hopefully also will contribute to make the cause of this accident to not happen again.

[HJ1AN]

There were some burn marks on the wing in a photo but no burn marks on the ground, so probably not only an in-flight break up but possibly even a in flight fire.

[berkut]

Metrojet on a crash:

Pilot error,mechanical fault ruled out.
Fuel problems wouldn't cause the plane to fall apart.
Plane may have suffered an external damage.
Plane was falling uncotrollably.

Source:RT

[HJ1AN]

Just read on a news site it was quite likely a 'external mechanical impact' that brought it down.

Can't link it ATM, I'm using a phone, links are horrible to do with news apps