Russian aircraft bombings of August 2004
Encyclopedia
The Russian aircraft bombings of August 2004 were terrorist
attacks on two domestic Russia
n passenger aircraft at around 23:00 on August 24, 2004. Both planes had flown out of Domodedovo International Airport
in Moscow
.
Note: All times quoted below are local times, UTC +4. All events occurred in the same time zone.
Flight 1303, a Tu-134 aircraft, registered RA-65080, which had been in service since 1977. The plane was flying from Moscow to Volgograd
. It left Domodedovo International Airport at 22:30. Communication with the plane was lost at 22:56 while it was flying over Tula Oblast
, 180 km south-east of Moscow. The remains of the aircraft were found on the ground several hours later. Witnesses on the ground said that they saw a strong explosion on the plane before it crashed.
34 passengers and 9 crew members were on board the plane. All of them died in the crash.
Flight 1047, which had left Domodedovo International Airport at 21:35, disappeared from the radar screens and crashed. The Tu-154 aircraft, registered RA-85556, which had been in service since 1982, was flying from Moscow to Sochi
. According to an unnamed government source of the Russian news agency Interfax, the plane had broadcast a hijack
warning while flying over Rostov Oblast
at 22:59.
The plane disappeared from radar screens shortly after that and crashed. 38 passengers and 8 crew members were on board the plane, and there were no survivors after the crash. The debris of the aircraft was found on the morning of August 25, 2004 9 km from village Glubokoye, Rostov Oblast
in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky
Raion
.
. President Vladimir Putin
immediately ordered the Federal Security Service (FSB) to investigate the crashes. By August 28, the FSB had found traces of the explosive RDX
in the remains of both planes. Itar-Tass news agency reported on August 30, 2004, "without a shadow of a doubt", the FSB security service said that "both airplanes were blown up as a result of a terrorist attack".
A little known group called the Islambouli Brigades claimed responsibility; the truth of those claims remains uncertain. The Islambouli Brigades have also claimed that five of their members were on each plane; experts are skeptical about the possibility of (and the need for) so many terrorists on board.
The subsequent investigation found that the bombs were triggered by two female Chechen suicide bombers, Grozny
residents Satsita Dzhebirkhanova (Siberia Airlines Flight 1047) and Amanta Nagayeva (Volga-AviaExpress Flight 1303). Nagayeva's brother had disappeared three years earlier and the family believed he was abducted by Russian forces.
Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev
took responsibility for the bombings in an open letter published on the Chechen separatists' websites on September 17, 2004. He claimed that the aircraft bombings cost him $4,000 U.S. dollars in total. He has also denied the Islambouli Brigade's claims.
The bombings followed the Moscow metro bombing
which left 41 people dead in February 2004 and preceded other deadly attacks in Russia soon afterwards: on August 31, 2004 a bomb
killed 10 at a Moscow subway station, and then the Beslan hostage crisis began on September 1, 2004 which would leave over 335 people dead, many of them children.
. According to the prosecution, Artamonov let them go without doing the search, and has been charged with criminal negligence. The prosecution asked the judge to give him 6 years of imprisonment, and on June 30, 2005 he was convicted of negligence and sentenced to 7 years of imprisonment. That sentence has been appealed, and the court reduced the term of his imprisonment from 7 to 6 years.
According to investigators, ticket seller Armen Aratyunyan was bribed approximately €140 (US$170) to sell tickets to the two women without getting proper IDs. Aratyunyan also helped Dzhebirkhanova to bribe the ticket-checking clerk, Nikolai Korenkov, with €25 (US$30), to get on board without a proper ID. On April 15, 2005, Aratyunyan and Korenkov were convicted of giving and taking the bribe respectively. Because of serious consequences of the bribe, they were sentenced to 1.5 years in settlement colony each (settlement colony convicts have more rights and privileges than people in regular colony).
Twenty-one relatives of the deceased passengers have filed a civil suit against the security company responsible for checking the passengers, ZAO East-Line Aviation Security. They demand 3,000,000 rubles (approximately €86,600 or US$115,000) in damages per victim. The trial in that case started in Volgograd
on February 22, 2007. The security company is claiming that it is not liable for damages, but the persons who organized the bombings are. The court handling the civil case has sent a request to the prosecutor's office to get an update on the criminal investigation. It turned out that the investigation was suspended indefinitely on September 26, 2006. According to the investigator who was handling the case, the people helping the suicide bombers at the airport have been killed in Chechnya, the people responsible for planning the bombings have never been identified (Shamil Basayev
, who claimed responsibility for organizing the bombings, has been killed as well), so the investigation was suspended due to lack of suspects. That civil case is still in court as of December 2009. Other passengers' relatives have also sued the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs
, S7 Airlines
and two insurance companies, Ingosstrakh and OAO Afes for damages (none of the defendants acknowledge any liability). On October 21, 2007, court in the latter case has found S7 Airlines liable for damages and ruled they should pay the relative of the victim in question 250,000 rubles (approximately €7,000), which was about 10% of what the plaintiffs asked for. S7's initial appeal was rejected by the court on May 27, 2008. A new S7 appeal was successful in April 2009 and the verdict was thrown out. This time, relatives of the passenger appealed that decision, but their appeal was dismissed in August 2009. They plan to appeal to a higher court.
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
attacks on two domestic Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n passenger aircraft at around 23:00 on August 24, 2004. Both planes had flown out of Domodedovo International Airport
Domodedovo International Airport
Moscow Domodedovo Airport or Domodedovo International Airport is an international airport located in Domodedovsky District, Moscow Oblast, Russia, south-southeast of the centre of Moscow...
in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.
Note: All times quoted below are local times, UTC +4. All events occurred in the same time zone.
Volga-AviaExpress Flight 1303
The first to crash was Volga-AviaExpressVolga-Aviaexpress
LCC Air Volga was an airline with its head office in the Omega Plaza business centre in Moscow, Russia. It operated scheduled services from its base at Volgograd International Airport to cities in Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan....
Flight 1303, a Tu-134 aircraft, registered RA-65080, which had been in service since 1977. The plane was flying from Moscow to Volgograd
Volgograd
Volgograd , formerly called Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad is an important industrial city and the administrative center of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. It is long, north to south, situated on the western bank of the Volga River...
. It left Domodedovo International Airport at 22:30. Communication with the plane was lost at 22:56 while it was flying over Tula Oblast
Tula Oblast
Tula Oblast is a federal subject of Russia with its present borders formed on September 26, 1937. Its administrative center is the city of Tula. The oblast has an area of and a population of 1,553,874...
, 180 km south-east of Moscow. The remains of the aircraft were found on the ground several hours later. Witnesses on the ground said that they saw a strong explosion on the plane before it crashed.
34 passengers and 9 crew members were on board the plane. All of them died in the crash.
Siberia Airlines Flight 1047
Just minutes after the first crash, Siberia AirlinesS7 Airlines
OJSC Siberia Airlines , operating as S7 Airlines, is an airline headquartered in Ob, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia, with offices in Moscow. S7 Airlines has been Russia's fastest-growing airline and recently passed Aeroflot as Russia's largest domestic airline.S7 has operated scheduled passenger...
Flight 1047, which had left Domodedovo International Airport at 21:35, disappeared from the radar screens and crashed. The Tu-154 aircraft, registered RA-85556, which had been in service since 1982, was flying from Moscow to Sochi
Sochi
Sochi is a city in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, situated just north of Russia's border with the de facto independent republic of Abkhazia, on the Black Sea coast. Greater Sochi sprawls for along the shores of the Black Sea near the Caucasus Mountains...
. According to an unnamed government source of the Russian news agency Interfax, the plane had broadcast a hijack
Aircraft hijacking
Aircraft hijacking is the unlawful seizure of an aircraft by an individual or a group. In most cases, the pilot is forced to fly according to the orders of the hijackers. Occasionally, however, the hijackers have flown the aircraft themselves, such as the September 11 attacks of 2001...
warning while flying over Rostov Oblast
Rostov Oblast
Rostov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in the Southern Federal District. Rostov Oblast has an area of and a population of making it the sixth most populous federal subject in Russia...
at 22:59.
The plane disappeared from radar screens shortly after that and crashed. 38 passengers and 8 crew members were on board the plane, and there were no survivors after the crash. The debris of the aircraft was found on the morning of August 25, 2004 9 km from village Glubokoye, Rostov Oblast
Rostov Oblast
Rostov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in the Southern Federal District. Rostov Oblast has an area of and a population of making it the sixth most populous federal subject in Russia...
in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky
Kamensk-Shakhtinsky
Kamensk-Shakhtinsky is a town in Rostov Oblast, located on the Seversky Donets River. It was founded by Cossack settlers in 1686 and was granted town status in 1927...
Raion
Raion
A raion is a type of administrative unit of several post-Soviet countries. The term, which is from French rayon 'honeycomb, department,' describes both a type of a subnational entity and a division of a city, and is commonly translated in English as "district"...
.
Responsibility
The two almost simultaneous crashes caused speculations about terrorismTerrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
. President Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
immediately ordered the Federal Security Service (FSB) to investigate the crashes. By August 28, the FSB had found traces of the explosive RDX
RDX
RDX, an initialism for Research Department Explosive, is an explosive nitroamine widely used in military and industrial applications. It was developed as an explosive which was more powerful than TNT, and it saw wide use in WWII. RDX is also known as cyclonite, hexogen , and T4...
in the remains of both planes. Itar-Tass news agency reported on August 30, 2004, "without a shadow of a doubt", the FSB security service said that "both airplanes were blown up as a result of a terrorist attack".
A little known group called the Islambouli Brigades claimed responsibility; the truth of those claims remains uncertain. The Islambouli Brigades have also claimed that five of their members were on each plane; experts are skeptical about the possibility of (and the need for) so many terrorists on board.
The subsequent investigation found that the bombs were triggered by two female Chechen suicide bombers, Grozny
Grozny
Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...
residents Satsita Dzhebirkhanova (Siberia Airlines Flight 1047) and Amanta Nagayeva (Volga-AviaExpress Flight 1303). Nagayeva's brother had disappeared three years earlier and the family believed he was abducted by Russian forces.
Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev
Shamil Basayev
Shamil Salmanovich Basayev was a Chechen militant Islamist and a leader of the Chechen rebel movement.Starting as a field commander in the Transcaucasus, Basayev led guerrilla campaigns against the Russian troops for years, as well as launching mass-hostage takings of civilians, with his goal...
took responsibility for the bombings in an open letter published on the Chechen separatists' websites on September 17, 2004. He claimed that the aircraft bombings cost him $4,000 U.S. dollars in total. He has also denied the Islambouli Brigade's claims.
The bombings followed the Moscow metro bombing
February 2004 Moscow metro bombing
The February 2004 Moscow metro bombing occurred on 6 February 2004 when a male suicide bomber killed 41 people near Avtozavodskaya subway station on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line in Moscow...
which left 41 people dead in February 2004 and preceded other deadly attacks in Russia soon afterwards: on August 31, 2004 a bomb
August 2004 Moscow metro bombing
The August 2004 Moscow metro bombing took place in the morning on August 31, 2004, when a female suicide bomber blew herself up outside Rizhskaya metro station, killing at least 10 people and wounding 50....
killed 10 at a Moscow subway station, and then the Beslan hostage crisis began on September 1, 2004 which would leave over 335 people dead, many of them children.
Trials
On the day of the bombings the bombers were stopped in the airport by the police captain Mikhail Artamonov to be searched for weapons and for identification. They were accompanied by two male Chechens, the four of them arrived to Moscow on a flight from MakhachkalaMakhachkala
-Twin towns/sister cities:Makhachkala is twinned with: Sfax, Tunisia Siping, China Spokane, United States Vladikavkaz, Russia Yalova, Turkey Ndola, Zambia-See also:*...
. According to the prosecution, Artamonov let them go without doing the search, and has been charged with criminal negligence. The prosecution asked the judge to give him 6 years of imprisonment, and on June 30, 2005 he was convicted of negligence and sentenced to 7 years of imprisonment. That sentence has been appealed, and the court reduced the term of his imprisonment from 7 to 6 years.
According to investigators, ticket seller Armen Aratyunyan was bribed approximately €140 (US$170) to sell tickets to the two women without getting proper IDs. Aratyunyan also helped Dzhebirkhanova to bribe the ticket-checking clerk, Nikolai Korenkov, with €25 (US$30), to get on board without a proper ID. On April 15, 2005, Aratyunyan and Korenkov were convicted of giving and taking the bribe respectively. Because of serious consequences of the bribe, they were sentenced to 1.5 years in settlement colony each (settlement colony convicts have more rights and privileges than people in regular colony).
Twenty-one relatives of the deceased passengers have filed a civil suit against the security company responsible for checking the passengers, ZAO East-Line Aviation Security. They demand 3,000,000 rubles (approximately €86,600 or US$115,000) in damages per victim. The trial in that case started in Volgograd
Volgograd
Volgograd , formerly called Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad is an important industrial city and the administrative center of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. It is long, north to south, situated on the western bank of the Volga River...
on February 22, 2007. The security company is claiming that it is not liable for damages, but the persons who organized the bombings are. The court handling the civil case has sent a request to the prosecutor's office to get an update on the criminal investigation. It turned out that the investigation was suspended indefinitely on September 26, 2006. According to the investigator who was handling the case, the people helping the suicide bombers at the airport have been killed in Chechnya, the people responsible for planning the bombings have never been identified (Shamil Basayev
Shamil Basayev
Shamil Salmanovich Basayev was a Chechen militant Islamist and a leader of the Chechen rebel movement.Starting as a field commander in the Transcaucasus, Basayev led guerrilla campaigns against the Russian troops for years, as well as launching mass-hostage takings of civilians, with his goal...
, who claimed responsibility for organizing the bombings, has been killed as well), so the investigation was suspended due to lack of suspects. That civil case is still in court as of December 2009. Other passengers' relatives have also sued the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs
Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs
The Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del is the interior ministry of Russia. Its predecessor was founded in 1802 by Alexander I in Imperial Russia...
, S7 Airlines
S7 Airlines
OJSC Siberia Airlines , operating as S7 Airlines, is an airline headquartered in Ob, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia, with offices in Moscow. S7 Airlines has been Russia's fastest-growing airline and recently passed Aeroflot as Russia's largest domestic airline.S7 has operated scheduled passenger...
and two insurance companies, Ingosstrakh and OAO Afes for damages (none of the defendants acknowledge any liability). On October 21, 2007, court in the latter case has found S7 Airlines liable for damages and ruled they should pay the relative of the victim in question 250,000 rubles (approximately €7,000), which was about 10% of what the plaintiffs asked for. S7's initial appeal was rejected by the court on May 27, 2008. A new S7 appeal was successful in April 2009 and the verdict was thrown out. This time, relatives of the passenger appealed that decision, but their appeal was dismissed in August 2009. They plan to appeal to a higher court.
External links
- S7 Airlines Statement about the bombing Report. Interstate Aviation Committee. Выводы Государственной комиссии по установлению причин катастроф воздушных судов ТУ-154 и ТУ-134, произошедших 24.08.2004 - Ministry of TransportMinistry of Transport (Russia)The Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation is the Russian ministry responsible for developing public policies and legal regulations regarding commercial aviation, sea transport, inland waterway transport, railroads, road transport, urban metro systems, and commercial transport vehicles...
- Investigators probe Russia crashes - CNN
- Traces of explosives found - CNN
- 'Terrorist' Bombs Brought Down Russian Planes - Reuters (August 30, 2004)