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Ukrainian Missile Shot Down Russian Plane
KIEV, Oct 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - An Ukrainian missile fired during military exercises in Crimea accidentally shot down a Russian airliner that crashed into the Black Sea Thursday, Ukrainian navy official Igor Larichev told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
All 76 people on board, mostly Israeli citizens, were feared dead after the TU-154 Sibir Airlines jet traveling from Tel Aviv crashed into the sea 190 kilometers (115 miles) south of the Russian city of Sochi, the Russian emergencies ministry said.
"The firing of missiles, with a range of 400 kilometers [250 miles], took place in the course of an anti-air attack exercise in the Feodocia in Crimea [southern Ukraine]," said a spokesman for the Black Sea fleet in Sebastopol.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier said he suspected a terrorist attack following reports of a midair explosion.
"Today a tragic event has happened to us," Putin told a group of Council of Europe justice ministers meeting in the Kremlin.
"A civilian aircraft crashed today, and terrorism has not been excluded as the cause."
Putin had convened an emergency Kremlin meeting following the downing and named the head of the Security Council, Vladimir Rushailo, to head the investigation into the causes of the crash.
The downing came less than a month after four U.S. civilian airliners were hijacked and crashed in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, killing more than 6,000 people, leading Russian speculation immediately upon hearing of the downing of the aircraft to on the possibility of terrorism.
Israel announced it was suspending all flights out of Tel Aviv airport, which has perhaps the highest level of security in the world.
An official at the Russian emergencies ministry told AFP that he had received information from eyewitnesses on board an Armenian airliner flying in the same vicinity that an explosion occurred on board the Russian jet.
Russian security sources at that point had said that a terrorist attack could not be ruled out, a possibility that was also evoked by Israeli authorities.
"For the time being we are collecting information but we are not excluding any lead, including a terrorist act," an Israeli transport ministry official said earlier.
"The aircraft disappeared from our radar screens at 13:45 pm [0945 GMT], an emergencies ministry spokesman said.
The plane had been flying at an altitude of about 30,000 feet and a speed of 500 miles per hour, having taken off from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport at 0758 GMT (2:58 a.m. EST).
The first bodies have been recovered from the waters of the Black Sea, the Interfax news agency quoted the emergencies ministry as saying.
Israeli Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh set up a crisis cell to deal with the situation, ministry officials said.
In July, a Russian Tupolev Tu-154 airliner crashed near the Siberian city of Irkutsk while coming in to land, killing 145 people in what was described as an accident caused by pilot error.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma sent Putin his condolences, the presidential press service said.
"In this sad hour I offer my sincere condolences to the victims' relatives and loved ones on behalf of the people of Ukraine and myself personally," Kuchma was quoted as saying by Interfax.
The downing of the Russian aircraft comes one day after what turned out to be a hijacking hoax in India. Immediate speculation there too centered on terrorism.
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