Russians Suspect Terrorists Knocked Down Two Airliners

Russian President Vladimir Putin cut short his Black Sea vacation and put his country's top anti-terrorism agency on the case after two civilian passenger jets crashed within a span of three minutes. The two had taken off from the same airport about an hour apart. In all, 89 people were killed.

One Middle East intelligence expert, who had no direct knowledge of the crashes, was quoted by Reuters as saying the "first indications are that this is an operation by al Qaeda or a local sympathizer group". He said al Qaeda had been trying to make inroads in Chechnya.

Both the Sibir Airlines Tu-154 and Volga-Aviaexpress Tu-134 had departed Moscow's Domodedovo Airport Tuesday night. The Tu-154 was bound for the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, while the Tu-134 was headed to Volgograd.

Volga-Aviaexpress said the pilot of its downed aircraft triggered a hijack alarm just before his aircraft went down near Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia.

"The message was generated right before all contact was lost with the plane and it disappeared from radar screens," said a statement from Sibir. The statement also said the wide distribution of wreckage suggested the Tupelov exploded in mid-air.

A spokesman for Volga-Aviaexpress, a small regional carrier, said the crew of the Tu-134 made no emergency calls before it crashed near Tula, south of Moscow. But witnesses on the ground said they heard an explosion from the aircraft just before it went down.

"Around 11 p.m. (1900 GMT), give or take five minutes, there was this strange noise in the sky, then this torn-up book fell onto our garage," one man told NTV television.

Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov told President Putin during a televised meeting of the FSB security service and the Emergencies Ministry, "We are examining a number of versions, among them a terrorist act, and human and technical factors."

The twin crashes came as Russia was already on high alert. Chechen rebels, long a problem for Putin and company, had promised to disrupt the presidential elections in that breakaway province. But moderate Chechen rebels immediately disavowed any connection to the downing of both jets.

FMI: www.avia.ru/english/join/faar.shtml