THE Russian plane that went missing around the time as another jet crashed issued a signal indicating a hijacking or seizure before disappearing from radar, the Interfax news agency has reported.
The signal came at 11:04 pm yesterday (0404 AEST today) from the Tu-154 airliner that went missing in southern Russia's Rostov region, Interfax quoted a source in Russia's "power structures" as saying.
Emergency workers were still searching for the plane hours after it disappeared from radar screens on a flight from Moscow to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.
The source said the signal was activated shortly before the plane disappeared.
Another passenger jet that went missing at about the same time crashed in the Tula region south of Moscow. There was no word on survivors among the 89 people believed to be aboard the two planes.
so the pilot set the transponder code to the hijack code....
pilots might have crashed the plane if they were headed toward Putin