Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Pete" wrote in message
...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe...ash/index.html

Within 4 minutes of each other. Both took off from Domodedovo

Right now they are saying that Russian sources report eyewitnesses seeing
the 134 explode in mid-air before coming down.


Coincidence, or...?

If the reports of a mid-air explosion for the 134 are correct, then I'd
imagine that losing two aircraft at about the same time, from the same
departure point, puts things a bit outside the likely coincidence realm.

Agreed, although that's a might big if. The number of a/c which are reported
by eyewitnesses to have exploded/been on fire before crashing but which were
subsequently found not to have been, is rather large. Another possibility,
assuming no explosion, would be a fuel contamination problem at Domededovo.
If the Tu-154 which disappeared had tanks that were more full than the other
before being topped up, that might explain the longer delay before problems
surfaced, depending on the order in which fuel is drawn. OTOH, the lack of
any radio comms from either a/c would be considered highly suspicious with
western a/c -- considering the reported state of Russian civil aviation and
ATC I don't know that we can jump to the same conclusion in this case.

Guy