Sorry this isn't overtly travel-related... but for those of you who haven't seen the news, 2 planes leaving Moscow at roughly the same time have both exploded simultaneously about 100 miles south of Moscow. At least 94 people feared dead. There was also an explosion in Moscow, but I can't seem to get much information on any of it yet.

They're not saying it's terrorism yet, though it sounds a whole lot like it is.

I'm just heartsick right now for the families of the passengers and starting to feel a little bit of dread about my trip in a few weeks to the UK.

With our elections coming I am really starting to fear an attack here... since the Spain bombings and now this attack in Russia before an election in Chechnya seem to be the latest tactic to disrupt the government. Oh... it's just awful.

I have heard about it .. What a tragedy for the families left behind..

I just hope that was just a coincidence,but 2 planes in the same day..?

Dont worry too much skatterfly, enjoy your trip abroad, have fun and tell us about it..

Bon Voyage,
ciao..

Yes, kismet... I believe it was 2 planes exploding simultaneously. Not really coincidence... seems deliberate to me.

I'm going to enjoy our trip, be glad I'm travelling with my parents and my husband and child and if something happens at least we're together.

But I can't help but feel very saddened... it dampens my desire to travel a little bit when these things happen.

Tu-134 passenger plane crashed near Tula on Tuesday evening, and another , Tu-154, went missing in the Rostov region, about 600 miles south of Moscow. Both planes had flown out from Moscow's Domodedovo airport.
The Tu-134, owned by Volga-Aviaexpress air company, was bound to Volgograd and the Tu-154, owned by Sibir air company, was on its flight to Sochi. Radio contact with the two was lost at 10:59 p.m. on Tuesday. Several hours later, the scene of the Tu-134's crash was discovered near the village of Buchalki in the Kimovsky district in the Tula region, 100 miles south of Moscow.

In another incident today in Moscow a bomb exploded in a bus stop, four people were injured.

The latest report is that the 2nd plane activated a hijack signal before it went "missing."

Here's a link for the article on CNN. Skatterfly, I'm sure everything will be fine with your flight to the UK.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe...ash/index.html

See Moscow Times reports at: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/doc/HotNews.html#61168

Oh this is just awful. I feel for the people left behind and for the victims of this attack.

In reading the replies to my OP, I just wanted to add that I didn't mean to overstate my concern about my own coming vacation. My intention was to express my sadness, utter shock, heartfelt grief that this has happened... I was so stunned and didn't know what to say. Like the dread immediately following the 9/11 attacks when we all waited for another shoe to drop. I just didn't want it to come across like a post about how afraid I was. Not at all.

Oh, god, I'm almost in tears right now about this. I can't believe it has happened again!

These crashes are having ripple effects across Europe. My husband caught a transatlantic flight this morning and pax were grilled far more than usual. Anything even slightly out of the ordinary was scrutinized...because my husband was flying out of Brussels and into the UK, he was questioned for nearly 20 minutes. Each passenger ahead of him in line also spent more time than usual being questioned at checking, plus there were two additional pretty comprehensive security checks before boarding the flight.
So if you have international travel plans over the next couple of days (at least), prepare for even more security precautions.

We're taking the Shuttle to the UK later today; glad I'm not flying, with this and the BA strike in London.

This is very sad !
Whenever people die in a violent way, it leaves a different type of grief for survivors.

and while this is most likely terrorist related.
I would think the first terrorist group that would come to mind would be the Chechnian (forgive bad speeling)Separatists. and not directly related to the other events such as 9/11 and Spain.

still, does not make it any less sad.

A tragedy, to be sure.

But when I first heard the news, I didn't think of terrorism - I thought of a mechanical problem common to both aircraft, such as a contaminated truckload of fuel.

Maybe it's because I'm a pilot, maybe because I'm a technoid, or maybe it's a function of my personality, but I don't always leap to the terrorism scenario. No evidence of terrorism has been found so far, and no one has claimed responsibility.

It's still pretty scary, though. The collapse of the U.S.S.R. has put a pinch on day-to-day operations all over the country. In fact, because conditions are so severe, I think we're in more danger from Soviet atomic weapons than we ever were during the Cold War. Literally tons of weapons-grade fissionable material has "disappeared" from sites all over the country that used to be locked down tighter than Area 51.

I wouldn't jump to any conclusions.

These Tu planes have a rather poor safety record. A Ukranian one went down a while ago while ferrying 70 Spanish troops back from Afghanistan. This was probably more responsible for Spain pulling the plug than many realize.

metlc, it was a YAK-42 (operated by Ukrainian charter company Mediterranean Airways) which crashed in May 2003 carrying the Spanish peacekeeping troops from Afghanistan.

Spain, despite pulling out from Iraq, has recently reaffirmed their commitment to peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan and will deploy approximately 1,000 troops there during the Afghani elections.

Marc, you beat me to it.

I pulled the database on Tupolev airframes just to see how problematical these designs might be. The Tu-134 has had three fatal incidents in the last decade, two of which were pilot error, one maintenance error. The Tu-154 has about 11 over the same period, only a couple of which might be attributable to mechanical problems, the remainder to human error. Just for perspective, the Boeing 737 has had about two dozen fatal incidents - all types, including human eror - over the same period. None of that considers how many of each type are flying, so it's not really a fair comparison, but I only present the numbers to give some idea of how rare it is that planes come down because of mechanical problems.

In light of that, the possibility that those two planes were independently brought down by mechanical failure within three minutes of each other - while perhaps not literally impossible - strains credibility. Something like the contaminated fuel scenario that Robespierre suggested (do they really fuel large jets in Moscow by truck? - I doubt it) may be more likely, but still very implausible. I don't think anything like that has ever happened.

So, absolutely, nobody should be jumping to conclusions but some sort of terrorist-related activity remains the most likely scenario given the facts we have, which now include that one of the planes reported a hijacking in progress [via an automated system] before going down.

I stand corrected.

Moreover: Wasn't that Ukranian charter crash on a bad-weather approach in Turkey?

I still maintain that those troop deaths had an effect that isn't publicly acknowledged -- election monitoring or not.

The aircraft, on a military charter flight from Kabul, Afghanistan to Zaragoza, Spain, crashed while on its third landing attempt for a refueling stop at the Black Sea port city of Trabzon. 62 Spanish peacekeeping forces were among those killed in the accident. Source: www.airdisaster.com

I was flying on 9/11 (Homg Kong-LA/diverted to Vancouver for several days). We were told that there is no specific signal that denotes a terrorist on board ... the signal means something awful is happening. Could be terrorist, could be technical. Maybe the pilots here know if that is true or not.

I am still astonished that this has not caught the biggest headline, round the world of the day, week or even month. Can you imagine two US airliners going down on the same day - - one with ANY kind of "hijack distress" call, NO MATTER HOW EQUIVOCAL! - - and the world NOT going into cataclysmic panic?

This is amazing.

Can't even compete with four-days old over-analysis of the Swift Boat (NON)-story.

Methinks that "mainstream" US-o-centric media are not sure they want to make it the story it could be. It might turn some voters away from Kerry, towards Bush.

Best wishes,

Rex

Rex, Ditch the politics, please. It's a horrible event.

I live in a very conservative part of SE Virginia and this story has been at the forefront of every newscast I've heard today on TV and radio.