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Went missing after taking off from Egypt's Sinai peninsula, more than 200 pax.
The BBC says it crashed.

The Airbus A-321, just taken off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, on its way to St Petersburg.

Russian passenger aircraft with 220 onboard goes off radar, reportedly crashes over Egypt

(Always unreliable) but tracking sites report a loss of airspeed and a sudden descent with an emergency declaration over the Sinai peninsula.

Unconfirmed 'reports' now of debris found.

Airframe Irish registered, so presumably wet-leased to Russian airline Kogalymavia.

Conflicting reports of:

A. Isis shoot down (ha bloody ha - as if)
B. Tech problems with engine(s) that had been evident over the past week.

My money is on B as it sounds like a high intensity, lo co, holiday airline schedule.

At least, unlike the trash 'over there', we can sit back now they have the recorders and wait for real news.

Lufthansa and Air France will avoid the airspace there from now on. The company has had problems in the past.

Yes indeed Boac. Just been across to 'The Dark Side'. What a load of drivel from armchair wanted to be aviators.

Out of curiosity I read the thread on TOP, it is completely embarrassing, hardly any of the posters have a clue what they are talking about, and it appears that the Telegraph are quoting pprune in their articles.
Also one poster inquiring as to why several pages have been deleted, the dumbing down of pprune by selective constructive dismissals is becoming evident if they feel that these posts are being submitted by professional pilots.

Good to see Sean Moffat upholding the 'professional' side with his careful interviews on the BBC. Obviously ignoring 'TOP'

It seems highly unlikely that the aircraft was downed by a MANPAD given the altitude reported from radar returns at the time the departure from controlled flight appears to have occurred. It is reported that no Mayday was reported and the descent was rapid so whatever issue that was encountered, be it an explosion on board or some other technical problem, resulted in almost immediate loss of control and possible breakup of the aircraft in flight. Apparently the aircraft had suffered damage in a tail strike in 2001 but how relevant this is to the accident is a moot point...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/31/did-accident-from-14-years-ago-doom-russian-plane-over-egypt.html

Sabotage is a possibility amongst the myriad of other possible causes of this awful accident.

Caco

Why are many sources saying that the aircraft could not have been shot down as it was too high at 31000 feet to have been hit by an ISIL missile?
MH017 was at FL330 and is known to have been downed by a missile, so demonstrably missiles with that capability exist.
Am I missing something here?

Am I missing something here?

- no, we all are. We all depend on the ability of the 'intelligence services' (perhaps a contradiction?) to (fail to?) determine the missile capability of forces in the area, as they did (fail to do) in the Ukraine. IF it had been known that the BUK system was in the region I suspect not one airline would have overflown.

But the BUK had not been there for long and it was provided by Russians (allegedly, they say) - who would do it in Sinai?
Isn't it a weird world. Then no-one wanted (wants) the responsibility, now there are claims by some who probably didn't do it.

Capetonian wrote:Why are many sources saying that the aircraft could not have been shot down as it was too high at 31000 feet to have been hit by an ISIL missile?
MH017 was at FL330 and is known to have been downed by a missile, so demonstrably missiles with that capability exist.
Am I missing something here?

It does not appear that ISIL (as yet) have access to sophisticated missile technology of the kind, usually operated by specially equipped military units, that that downed MH017 although, as BOAC notes, military intelligence is often a delusion and thus operational certainties may turn out to be dangerous delusions when it comes to outfits like ISIL. The average MANPAD (of the kind that ISIL might be thought to have access to) is unlikely to be effective much above 15,000 feet. The NOTAM for this area currently notes the following:


E) HAZARDOUS SITUATION IN EGYPTIAN AIRSPACE IN NORTHERN SINAI
GOVERNATE WITHIN THE AREA BOUNDED BY 311400N 322200E - 294000N
324000E - 293000N 345400E - 312000N 341200E - 311400N 322200E (CAIRO
FIR, SINAI PENINSULA). POTENTIAL RISK TO AVIATION OVERFLYING THIS
AREA AT LESS THAN 25,000FT AGL FROM DEDICATED ANTI-AVIATION WEAPONRY.
OPERATORS ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO TAKE THIS POTENTIAL RISK INTO
ACCOUNT IN THEIR RISK ASSESSMENTS AND ROUTEING DECISIONS. CONTACT UK
DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT (DFT) (+44) (0)20 7944 3260 OR (+44) (0)207
944 5999 OUT OF HOURS 14-12-0274/AS6.

Some airlines are now avoiding the area with concomitant cost and congestion risk...

If ISIL are implicated in this disaster then it is most likely a bomb or some other form of sabotage that downed the aircraft.

Caco

It does not appear that ISIL (as yet) have access to sophisticated missile technology of the kind, usually operated by specially equipped military units, that that downed MH01

It does not appear that ISIL (as yet) have access to sophisticated missile technology of the kind, usually operated by specially equipped military units, that that downed MH017

Which is eggszackerly my point. By definition ownership and location of such armaments is clandestine and as for 'military intelligence', whom can we trust?

Today French 'experts' (a bit of an oxymoron I fear) as yet unspecified are saying there may have been an explosive device on board. If they are from Airbus then I might have some faith.

It's a terrible crime against humanity, the worst type, when an aircraft known to be full of holidaymakers is targeted for political reasons. We had two such atrocities in Rhodesia with the shooting down of two Viscounts by Nkomo's terrorists.

If this is anything to go by I put no faith in their ability to bring down an airliner flying at 31K

[bbvideo=560,315]http://youtu.be/dstGdAHGL30[/bbvideo]

Don't discount the possibility that another missile achieved something outside it's envelope.
It happened in 1982 with the Learjet and a Canberra bomber.

If the loss of this aircraft, and all souls on board, is ever traced back to ISIS I think we'll see the Russian bombing campaign step up ten fold. At a minimum.