Siberia Airlines Flight 1812

Infobox Airliner accident|name=Siberia Airlines Flight 1812
Date= 4 October 2001
Type=Cause in dispute
Site=Black Sea
Fatalities=78
Injuries=0
Aircraft Type=Tupolev-154M
Origin=Ben Gurion International Airport,
Tel Aviv, Israel
Destination=Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport,
Novosibirsk, Russia

Operator=Siberia Airlines
Tail Number=RA-85693 flagicon|RUS
Passengers=66
Crew=12
Survivors=0

Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 crashed over the Black Sea on October 4, 2001, en route from Tel Aviv, Israel to Novosibirsk, Russia. The plane, a Soviet-made Tupolev Tu-154, carried an estimated 66 passengers and 12 crew members. None on board survived. The crash site is some convert|120|mi|km|lk=on west-southwest of the Black Sea resort of Sochi and convert|90|mi|km| north of the Turkish coastal town of Fatsa and convert|220|mi|km miles east-southeast of Feodosiya, Ukraine.

Initial information

The Russian ground control center in Sochi suddenly lost contact with the airliner. Soon, the pilot of an Armenian plane crossing the sea nearby reported seeing the Russian plane explode before it crashed into the sea about 1:45 PM Moscow time (9:45 AM GMT). ["Russian jet explodes over Black Sea," "BBC News", October 4, 2001; "Black Sea crash wreckage located," "BBC News", October 5, 2001.]

Claim of missile strike and initial reaction

Occurring less than a month after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the crash was initially thought to be an act of terrorism. Nicholas Esterhazy, in an editorial in the "Johns Hopkins Newsletter", speculated that, while Israeli and Russian intelligence immediately suspected a terrorist attack, US intelligence, due to fear of the mass hysteria that would surround yet another terrorist attack just weeks after September 11th, reported that the crash was due to an errant S-200 (also known in the West as an SA-5 Gammon) surface to air missile fired as part of a Ukrainian Air Defense Forces exercise staged off Cape Onuk (or Chuluk) in Crimea. Esterhazy considered this hypothesis unlikely due to the missile's range and safety-features. [Nicholas Esterhazy, "Munich revisited: A look into current U.S. foreign policy. For King & Country," "Johns Hopkins Newsletter", October 21, 2001.] He noted that the missile, with a range of 240 km (185 miles) could not have struck the plane which was more than 320 km away from the missile launch site. [ Esterhazy, "Munich Revisited." On the particulars of the crash, see also Alan Philips and Andrew Sparrow, "Airliner blasted out of sky" "Daily Telegraph" (October, 2001).]

Russian officials initially dismissed the American claim as "unworthy of attention," [Philips and Sparrow, "Airliner blasted out of sky."] and Russian President Vladimir Putin told the press the next day that "the weapons used in those exercises had such characteristics that make it impossible for them to reach the air corridor through which the plane was moving." [Ibid.] Ukrainian military officials initially denied that their missile had brought down the plane; They reported that the S-200 had been launched seawards and had successfully self-destructed. Indeed, Defense Ministry spokesman Konstantin Khivrenko noted that "Neither the direction nor the range [of the missiles] correspond to the practical or theoretical point at which the plane exploded." [Ibid.]

ubsequent Investigation

The following investigation conducted by Russian air safety officials discovered that the wreckage bore damage similar to that caused by the distinctive spherical shrapnel produced by the S-200. Also the timing of both the launch and the crash were reported matching.

Despite that, the Ukrainian military at first insisted that the launch was completed according to the exercise plan, supported by video shot from the command post. But later the government of Ukraine officially recognized its military's fault in the accident and started negotiating compensation payments for victims' relatives.

On November 20, 2003, the compensation agreement was signed between the governments of Ukraine and Israel. It was later ratified by the relatives of the victims who agreed to the conditions. In addition to compensation issues, the agreement has stated that "Ukraine is not legally responsible for the accident that occurred to the plane and free of any obligations regarding it".Fact|date=November 2007 Commenting on the agreement, Gen. Oleksandr Kuz'muk, the ex-Minister of Defense sacked after the accident, told media that "the payments were a humane action, not the admittance of guilt".Fact|date=November 2007

Some Russian relatives of the crash victims refused to accept the compensation conditions offered by Ukraine. They brought a civil suit against the Ukrainian government to Pechers'ky local court in Kiev. During the court hearings, the government representatives stated that the airplane "could not be brought down by a Ukrainian missile" according to the radar data.Fact|date=November 2007 They also questioned the conclusions of the Russian-conducted investigation, calling them "mathematically modeled, but not proven by evidence".Fact|date=November 2007 They argued that the Soviet-made Identification friend or foe system of the missile in question would have prevented it from striking the Soviet-made airliner. The lawyer representing the plaintiffs argued in media that the fault of the Ukrainian government was effectively proven by the fact that it negotiated the compensations for Israeli relatives of the victims.

On June 21, 2004, the spokesperson of Ukraine's General Prosecution Office stated that none of the 11 forensic examinations carried out so far have proven the fact of hitting the Tupolev-154 by a Ukrainian missile so the criminal investigation continued.

External links

* [http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20011004-0&lang=en Aviation Safety Net]
* [http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1025062265408_20471465// Canadian TV] and [http://israelemb.org/chicago/Israel%20Update/2001/10/IU%2010-04-01.htm Consulate General of Israel, Chicago] reporting on the unscheduled stopover at Burgas, Bulgaria.

References

See also

* Ukrainian Air Force
*Korean Air Lines Flight 007