New Evidence Suggests Bomb May Have Destroyed Russian Plane

After a Russian passenger jet was destroyed over the Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board, ISIS was quick to claim that they had shot down the aircraft. Of course, the evidence that ISIS provided to prove their assertion was pretty weak, and the idea that they have the capability of shooting down an airliner is just as absurd now as it was last week. However, there is some new evidence that indicates the plane may have been brought down by a bomb.

Egyptian investigators have been pouring over the cockpit voice recording that was recovered from the flight, and have determined that the crash was likely caused by an explosion of some kind. However, they’re still trying to determine what kind of explosion it was. According to the Egyptian official leading the investigation:

Mokadem said the flight data recorder stopped about 23 minutes after takeoff when the plane was at an altitude of over 30,000 feet and traveling about 323 miles per hour. The wreckage was scattered over eight miles, indicating the plane disintegrated in midair, he said.

To determine what caused the final noise on the cockpit voice recorder, investigators may have to pour over each millisecond of sound as they look for clues into what caused the crash, according to Tom Haueter, the former director of aviation safety at the National Transportation Safety Board.

An extremely loud noise like an explosion or rupture would be heard as a “click” on the recording, Haueter said. Investigators then break that “click” down into milliseconds to see if the sound profile appears to be a bomb, fuel tank explosion, rupture or other event.

While nobody is officially calling this incident a terror attack, those in the know seem to be treating it as such. Both Russia and the UK have suspended all flights coming out of Egypt, leaving tens of thousands tourists stranded. European investigators who have examined the recording are saying that the crash was not an accident, and according to AFP, the investigation is leaning towards the possibility of a bomb plot.

The head of Russia’s emergencies ministry said Russian experts had taken samples from the crashed jet and were testing it for any traces of explosives.

But a source close to the investigation told AFP the black box data “strongly favours” the theory a bomb on board brought down the plane.

Another person close to the case in Paris said the plane had suffered “a violent, sudden” end, saying: “Everything was normal during the flight, absolutely normal, and suddenly there was nothing.”

If this does turn out to be a terrorist attack, it’s going to leave a lot of unanswered questions on the table. If an ISIS affiliated group was really responsible for planting the bomb, why did they erroneously claim that they had shot down the aircraft? And if they didn’t do it, why haven’t the culprits come forward? Terrorist groups almost always confess to their attacks. And isn’t it interesting that nobody has targeted any American flights, despite the fact that our military has been bombing Syria for over a year?

At least, it’s an intriguing question for anyone who doesn’t know about the US government’s relationship with ISIS. That leads us to the possibility that our own government was somehow involved, but even that doesn’t really make sense. Surely, even Washington knows that downing a passenger jet would have zero effect on Russia’s campaign in Syria, or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

Hopefully this will just turn out to be a freak accident, because otherwise, there is no other reasonable explanation we can turn to. It suggests that something is in the works that we won’t fully understand until after the fact.