RUSSIAN PLANE CRASHES IN EGYPT. ALL DEAD

[Oldtimer]

All feared dead as wreckage of crashed Russian passenger plane with 224 on board located in southern Arish, Sinai | South China Morning Post

[wtbhotia]

AIYA, I heard it on the radio when driving to Sunny bay. RIP

[huja]

Very strange reporting of this on my twitter feed. First it was that Egyptian air traffic control had lost contact with plane. Then it was reported flight was picked up by Turkish ATC and was fine. Then the report of the crash.

RIP

[gunsnroses]

Some group affiliated with ISIS is claiming the responsibility but authorities said it crashed due to technical fault.
Very said either way. RIP.

[Open Casket]

The latest reports are that the plane was last heard from at 31,000....and no SOS or distress signals were received from the pilots. This is very discerning.

German carrier Lufthansa said it would avoid flying over the Sinai peninsula "as long as the cause for today's crash has not been clarified". On Saturday evening, Air France-KLM said it was following suit.

[alph]

Some group affiliated with ISIS is claiming the responsibility but authorities said it crashed due to technical fault.
Very said either way. RIP.

ISIS probably didn't think this one through properly when they claimed responsibility. The Russians don't need to be politically correct in war, unlike the US and Western Europe. They will not hold back if they need to steamroll a city just to wipe out insurgents.

[hullexile]

Problems with the IS claim:
- the plane was at 31000 feet and the group claiming responsibilty are not thought to have the missiles capable of shooting a plane down at that height
- the plane was seen on the flight tracker to descend sharply by 4500 feet in one minute which is fast but I doubt fast enough to have been the result of being hit by a missile
- the pilot complained to his daughter before the flight that the plane was in poor condition

[Cho-man]

- the pilot complained to his daughter before the flight that the plane was in poor condition

Russia has a terrible flight safety record with its airlines, worse than less-developed places like Africa. Poor maintenance, spotty oversight by the regulators and undertrained pilots all make for a bad combination.

[bunko8]

Russia has a terrible flight safety record with its airlines, worse than less-developed places like Africa. Poor maintenance, spotty oversight by the regulators and undertrained pilots all make for a bad combination.

People tend to lump the entire African continent with countries (e.g. Russia, China, France, Africa). Anyway, surely Russia is not worse than all 54 countries in Africa right? I'll fly a Russian commercial airliner before ones in Rwanda, Congo or Eritrea.

[Cho-man]

People tend to lump the entire African continent with countries (e.g. Russia, China, France, Africa). Anyway, surely Russia is not worse than all 54 countries in Africa right? I'll fly a Russian commercial airliner before ones in Rwanda, Congo or Eritrea.

Fair point. I should add of course, some Russian airlines are safer than other Russian airlines. And in fairness, Russia has come some way since the nasty days of the immediate post-Soviet Union era. Back then, you would not want to fly over there. Still, its air safety record remains subpar compared to China (which also had a poor safety record back in the early 90's, but has improved drastically since then).