Shrapnel damage to wreckage recovered from the Sibir Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 that crashed in the Black Sea on 4 October has strengthened evidence pointing to a stray Ukrainian missile being the cause. All 66 passengers and 12 crew died in the accident.
Members of the Russian accident investigation team, quoted by Russian news agency Interfax, report having found what appear to be parts of a Grushin S-200 Angara (SA-5 Gammon) surface-to-air missile among the wreckage. The missile type was being used by Ukrainian armed forces conducting an exercise at Opuk, Crimea, as the aircraft was crossing the Black Sea en route from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Novosibirsk. It is also reported that traces of S-30 explosive - the type used in the S-200 - were found on victims' clothing.
Interstate aviation committee (MAK) chairman Tatyana Anodina says that a section of the centre fuselage was peppered with holes. She adds that a transmission in which a distraught pilot said "where did it hit?" was recorded at Rostov air traffic control centre about 6min after the explosion.
Reports from Tel Aviv state that US intelligence officers are believed to have shown their Israeli counterparts evidence from spy satellites able to track jet or rocket efflux. Cochav Hes, the Israeli civil aviation authority chief investigator, is an observer in the Russian investigation. Israeli sources say the Russians now accept that the airliner was shot down by a missile.
The Ukrainian Government is no longer protesting that it could not have been one of their missiles.
Source: Flight International
