Russian Airbus crash in Egypt

[flyguy]

These aircraft have a habit of shedding tail parts, usually the vertical stabilizer or the rudder. Makes me wonder if the tail strike incident that was reported didn't weaken something and maybe the horizontal stabilizer parted ways with the airplane in flight. The horizontal stabilizer is nowhere to be seen in any of the pictures, which points to it being shed early in the accident sequence. Loosing the horizontal stabilizer is going to produce some really violent maneuvers that could cause the separation of the tail section as happened.

The other thing that bothers me is that if the tail section was blown off by a bomb, but not burned in the fire, as the photos show, then that section of the plane would smell. It is my experience that most explosives really stink. It is almost a signature of the different types. Would not someone have casually mentioned that by now, especially as that is what they seem to want to blame it on?

[NC36061]

Re: Russian Airbus crash in Egypt

It could go either way, an old tail strike repair failure was what brought down the JAL123 747. Apparently the CVR reveals an "explosion" but a decompression at altitude would sound the same I would imagine. Some explosive residues do smell, but not all, and it wouldn't take a lot to breach the fuselage. I wouldn't expect a real objective investigation out of this, I'm sure Putin will find the answer he wants. A Russian-maintained Airbus flying in the middle east... what could go wrong?