Siberia Airlines Flight 1812

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Siberia Airlines Flight 1812

Summary
Date	4 October 2001
Type	Hit by anti-aircraft missile
Site	Black Sea
Passengers	66
Crew	12
Injuries	0
Fatalities	78
Survivors	0
Aircraft type	Tupolev-154M
Operator	Siberia Airlines
Tail number	RA-85693
Flight origin	Ben Gurion International Airport
Destination	Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport

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-154, carried an estimated 66 passengers and 12 crew members. No one on board survived. The crash site is some 120 miles WSW of Sochi and 90 miles north of the Turkish coastal town of Fatsa and 220 miles ESE of Feodosia.

Contents 1 Initial Information 2 Claim of Missile Strike and Initial Reaction 3 Subsequent Investigation 4 The Bulgarian Stopover 5 External links 6 References 7 See also

[edit] Initial Information

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).^[1]

[edit] Claim of Missile Strike and Initial Reaction

In the post-September 11 situation, the crash was initially thought to be due to 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 mass hysteria of 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 missiles range and safety-features.^[2] 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.^[3]

Russian officials initially dismissed the American claim as "unworthy of attention,"^[4] 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."^[5] 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."^[6]

[edit] Subsequent 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".^{[citation needed]} 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".^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]} They also questioned the conclusions of the Russian-conducted investigation, calling them "mathematically modeled, but not proven by evidence".^{[citation needed]} 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.

[edit] The Bulgarian Stopover

It was reported that Flight 1812 made an unscheduled stopover in Burgas, Bulgaria, where it apparently took some more passengers, but this suggestion has been strongly denied by Bulgarian and other authorities. If this stopover never occurred, then flight 1812 was almost 400 miles off-course (as a Siberian airline spokeswoman said, the flight from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk would not take the plane over the Black Sea at all, and was delayed some 2 to 3-hour when it crashed, having taken off from Tel Aviv at 10:00 AM local time.

[edit] External links

• Aviation Safety Net
• Canadian TV and Consulate General of Israel, Chicago reporting on the unscheduled stopover at Burgas, Bulgaria.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Ukrainian Air Force
• Korean Air Lines Flight 007

Coordinates: 42°11′N, 37°37′E