Tail Section Of The Aircraft Found Three Miles From Main Wreckage

The tail of the Metrojet A321 that went down Saturday in Egypt had been damaged and repaired while flying for Lebanese carrier Middle East Airlines in 2001, according to the airliner's registration records. The tail section reportedly struck a runway during a landing and required repair, according to the airplane's logs.

That portion of the airplane was found by investigators about three miles from the main wreckage, according to multiple media reports. Theories that the tail section failed and separated from the aircraft in flight have been added to speculation about what happened to the Russian airliner. CNN reports that former DOT Inspector General Mary Schaivo, who is now an analyst for the network, said she had once worked on an accident in which a repaired tail section brought down an airliner nearly 20 years after the repair had been done. She said a bad repair "is like a ticking time bomb."

But the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that Egyptian authorities say there is no evidence that the plane broke up in flight. Ministry spokesman Mohamed Rahmi also confirmed that there had been no distress call from the crew before the airplane went down.

"No communication from the pilot was recorded at the navigation centers requesting anything," he said.

Andrei Averyanov, a spokesman for Metrojet, acknowledged the repair to the airplane, but said the A321, which was manufactured in 1997, had been inspected "thoroughly" for cracks in 2013, and that not enough time had passed for major cracks to form since that inspection. Officials have said that all inspections were in order.

While authorities have ruled out a missile strike, they have not ruled out the possibility that a bomb exploded on board the aircraft. A U.S. official said that new intelligence suggests that ISIS, or an affiliate of the terrorist group, placed a bomb on the airliner.

The official, who requested anonymity but was described by CNN as being "familiar" with the matter, cautioned that no formal conclusion had been reached. "There is a definite feeling it was an explosive device planted in luggage or somewhere in the plane," the official told CNN.

Although Russia's Tass news agency reports that both Russian and Egyptian experts had not noted any blast-related trauma on the remains of the victims they had examined. But another CNN analyst, David Soucie, a former FAA accident investigator, said that an explosion would not have to be large to rupture the hull the aircraft.

A U.S. military satellite indicted that there had been a midair flash of heat from the airliner before it started descending. Possible causes of the heat flash could have been a bomb, an uncontained engine failure, or a structural failure that led to a fire, analysts said.

Egyptian officials said they are finishing their field work and will then turn to examination of the Cockpit Voice and Data Recorders recovered from the aircraft. Data retrieval from the devices has been underway since Monday, according to CNN. The Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a statement posted on its website that the data from the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) has been extracted and validated. It will now be subject to detailed analysis by the investigators. The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) is partially damaged and a lot of work is required in order to extract the data from it. Consequently, no further comment on the content of the CVR can be made. Examination of parts on site is continuing.

Egypt is leading the investigation with Accredited Representatives from Russia (State of Operator), Ireland (State of Registry), France (State of Design) and Germany (State of Manufacturer). Further information will be available in due course.

(Metrojet A321 pictured in image from YouTube. Additional images provided by the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation)

FMI: www.civilaviation.gov.eg