Flight security

Terrorism Unlikely in Russian Plane Crash, Authorities Say

In the wake of a Russian plane crash that killed all 92 passengers on Sunday – most of them members of Russia’s Defense Ministry – authorities have largely ruled out the possibility that it was a terrorist attack. The plane, a Tu-154 military aircraft, crashed into the Black Sea just minutes after taking off from Sochi on Sunday. Carrying the military’s official choir, the Alexandrov Ensemble, several high-ranking members of the Defense Ministry and journalists, it had been heading to Syria’s Latakia for New Year’s celebrations at a Russian base. On Monday, Transportation Minister Maxim Sokolov told journalists that investigators are “proceeding from the assumption that it was either a technical failure or a pilot error.”