Russia: Equipment wasn't functioning correctly on board crashed plane

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russian officials probing the crash of a Syria-bound military plane said Thursday, December 29 there was no explosion on board, but equipment was not functioning correctly when it plunged into the Black Sea, AFP said.

The Soviet-era Tu-154 plane went down shortly after takeoff from Sochi airport on Sunday morning, killing all 92 on board, including scores of performers from a feted Red Army Choir troupe.

"There was no explosion on board, I can say that for certain," said Sergei Bainetov, head of flight safety for the Russian air force. "But an act of terror is not necessarily an explosion, so we are not discarding this version."

Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said the probe had established the plane was not working normally but will not issue any conclusions before January, cautioning journalists not to jump on any theories.

"It is obvious that the equipment was functioning abnormally. Why that happened is up to experts to work out," he told reporters.

The military ensemble was due to give a concert to Russian soldiers at the Hmeimim base, Moscow's main outpost for its bombing campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

Bainetov said the air force had ground the Tu-154, which is not used by commercial airlines, "until the first conclusions" are made about the crash.

The plane was flown by an experienced pilot, who had 4,000 hours of flight experience, including 1,500 hours on the Tu-154, and analysis of the second black box, which records conversations in the cockpit, suggests he noticed something was wrong.