[Moose4]

Flight 1047, a Tu-154 operated by Sibir airline, left Moscow at 10:35 p.m. heading for Sochi, then vanished from Russian radar at 10:59 p.m., according to news reports. Interfax reported that 38 passengers and eight crew members were aboard, while the RIA-Novosti news agency put the number of passengers at 44.

Four hours after the crash, rescue personnel were still searching for the remains of the aircraft about 82 miles from Rostov-on-Don. About 3 a.m. they found a fire they believed could indicate the scene of the crash.

That makes no sense. How the heck could the airplane take off from Moscow at 10:35 pm and disappear from radar (presumably explode or crash) at 10:59 pm, when the crash site was several hundred miles from Moscow? Either (a) there's some timezone weirdness there between Moscow and Rostov-on-Don--maybe Rostov is an hour behind Moscow and the times are both local--or (b) the plane dropped off radar 24 minutes after takeoff and kept flying for over an hour. There's no way it could've covered more than, what, 120 to 150 miles in the first 24 minutes, on climbout?

}:-)4

[ChadGore]

This from Skynews:

MYSTERY OF PLANE CRASHES

President Vladimir Putin has ordered an investigation after two passenger planes went missing within minutes of each other over central Russia.

One airliner carrying 38 passengers and eight crew crashed 110 miles south of Moscow.

It was en route to Russia's southern city of Volgograd when it disappeared off radar screens close to the town of Tula.

Three minutes later air traffic controllers lost contact with the second plane carrying 44 passengers, as it was flying from Moscow to the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Witnesses there say they saw an explosion before the plane crashed.

Authorities are not ruling out terrorist attacks against the aircraft.

Russia's UN Ambassador Andrey Denisov said: "Now we have to see if there's terrorism.

In Washington, a senior US State Department official said: "We are obviously concerned by the news. We're following developments closely and trying to determine the facts."

[eabinga]

We have come to the same conclusion.

[ChadGore]

Re: That makes no sense. How the heck could the airplane take off from Moscow at 10:35 pm and disappear from radar (presumably explode or crash) at 10:59 pm, when the crash site was several hundred miles from Moscow? Either (a) there's some timezone weirdness there between Moscow and Rostov-on-Don--maybe Rostov is an hour behind Moscow and the times are both local--or (b) the plane dropped off radar 24 minutes after takeoff and kept flying for over an hour. There's no way it could've covered more than, what, 120 to 150 miles in the first 24 minutes, on climbout?

Our best guess at this point is that the departure times in the WashPost story were not correct.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Flight 1047 data

Flight 1303 data

[Snowy]

Hmmmm..... today is the 24th. Probably coincidence.