Metrojet officials are claiming an “external impact” brought down the Russian
passenger jet that crash over‘s Sinai Peninsula over the weekend, although aviation experts insist it’s far too early to tell what brought down the plane.
The Metrojet Airbus A321-200 weless than half an hour after departing from the beach resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on the way to St. Petersburg, Russia, according to the Associated Press. The debris was spread over a large area, which suggests the plane broke up at a high altitude. All 224 passengers and crew were killed.
“We absolutely exclude the technical failure of the plane, and we absolutely exclude pilot error or a human factor,” Aleksandr A. Smirnov, Metrojet’s deputy director for aviation, said at a Moscow press conference Monday. “The only possible explanation could be an external impact on the airplane,” he added.
But it may be too early to tell what brought down the aircraft.
“I am surprised that an airline manager, at the point that we are at in this investigation, would make a statement like that,” Robert Francis, a former vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board told the New York Times.
“Without the flight recorders having been read, and without more investigation of the fuselage, which is spread all over the place, I don’t think you can rule out anything,”
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