[NJ_gent]

"Weather could be another possibility. There are all sort of things that could be possibilities. However, the odds of two airliners taking off from the same airport, then having accidents leading to crashes within a short time of each other several hundred miles apart are astronomical."

I agree, but everyone's jumping to the conclusion that they have the answer when they don't even have any hard facts. Let's take a stroll through what we know so far - as per posts to this thread:

• There were timebombs slipped on both planes
  
• There were simultaneously-detonated shoe bombs
  
• Shoulder-fire missiles
  
• Chechen terrorists stormed the cockpits of both planes
  
• Simultaneous suicide bombers
  
• Both planes were hijacked, then ditched by the hijackers
  
  

In other words, no one knows what's going on yet, which is what I said originally. :-)

[Smogger]

Chechen terrorists stormed the cockpits of both planes

That's my vote ;-)

[COEXERJ145]

Shoulder-fire missiles

As at least one airliner was at or near cruise altitude, this is highly unlikely.

[Dog Gone]

Shoulder-fire missiles

These planes had to be at cruising altitude, far above the range of shoulder-fired missiles, I'd suspect.

[Wolfstar]

I agree, but everyone's jumping to the conclusion that they have the answer when they don't even have any hard facts."

Hmmm...well, it seems that Moscow's air controller center also is considering the possibility of a terrorist attack. Near as I can determine, most folks on here are merely speculating as to what the cause might be, and most are inclined to believe terrorism is the likely cause -- not definite, but likely. There is a difference.

Latest bulletin from Agence France Press:

MOSCOW (AFP) One Russian airliner has crashed in central Russia and another is missing in the country's south, Russia's emergency ministry said.

A Tu-134 aircraft with 34 passengers and eight crew on board was en route to Russia's southern city of Volgograd when it disappeared off radar screens late Tuesday, the ministry's spokeswoman Marina Ryklina said.

Its tail was later found near the village of Buchalki in the Tula region some 180 kilometers (110 miles) south of Moscow, Ryklina said. The fate of passengers and crew was unclear.

Local emergency ministry officials cited witness reports of an explosion aboard before the airplane went down, the Interfax news agency reported.

In a separate case, a Tu-154 airplane with 44 people on board went missing near the southern city of Rostov-on-Don while on the way to the Black Sea resort of Sochi, officials said.

Both airplanes dropped off radar screens within minutes of each other, a source in Moscow's air controller center told the ITAR-TASS news agency, adding that he could not exclude the possibility of a terrorist act.