#5486
[Second Issue of the Day]
#4
Russia crash pilot's last words Where are we hit?
MOSCOW, Oct 11 (Reuters) - The pilot of the Russian airliner that exploded
over the Black Sea last week desperately asked his crew where his plane was
hit, apparently assuming the aircraft had been struck by a missile, an
aviation official said.
Vladimir Zhukov, deputy chief of Russia's North Caucasus air traffic control,
told Thursday's edition of Kommersant newspaper the flight crew tried to
contact air traffic controllers as the plane plunged thousands of feet before
crashing, but only fragments of the signal got through.
"This is all we heard, the pilot asked one of his crew, "Where are
we hit?"
You see, it looks like he was trying to get precise information about the
damage caused by the missile explosion," Zhukov was quoted as saying.
Evidence is mounting that a stray Ukrainian missile downed the Sibir airline
jet last Thursday, killing all 78 passengers and crew on board. Most were
Russian-born Israelis flying from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk in Siberia.
Zhukov said air traffic controllers then heard another attempt to send an
electronic signal, some 30 seconds after the pilot's frantic demand, before
the airwaves fell silent.
The Kommersant report said experts linked to the investigation believed many
of the passengers and crew were alive during the airliner's death plunge.
The missile did not strike the jet directly, exploding instead at a distance,
spraying it with fragmentation shrapnel, the report said.
Russian, Ukrainian and Israeli experts in the Black Sea port of Sochi are
sifting through the wreckage and human remains trawled up from the crash site
to piece together the airliner's last moments. Only 15 bodies have been
found.
On Tuesday, Russian experts said they had found what appeared to be missile
parts in the debris of the Tu-154.
At the time of the crash, Ukrainian armed forces were carrying out missile
exercises on the Crimea Black Sea peninsula, several hundred kilometres from
where the airliner came down.
Ukraine's military denied it was to blame but government officials said the
missile theory should be considered. On Wednesday, President Leonid Kuchma, a
former missile factory boss, said he would accept the crash investigators'
findings.
If Ukraine's forces are responsible, it would be the second time in 18 months
they have lost control of a live missile.
Last year, four people were killed in their homes in the town of Brovary when
a rocket ploughed into their apartment block. The defence ministry denied
responsibility until rescue workers found remnants of the missile in the
rubble.
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