MOSCOW. Sept 13 (Interfax) - An international technical commission investigating the crash of a Metrojet (Kogalymavia) Airbus A321 aircraft in Egypt last fall has determined the precise location onboard the plane where the perpetrators planted a bomb that subsequently destroyed it, Kommersant reported on Tuesday.
"The center [of the blast] was not behind the [last row of the] seats, as was presumed before, but about two meters lower, on the floor of the so-called aft bulk compartment," the newspaper said.
On the A321, this compartment is about five cubic meters in volume and is typically used to transport off-size passenger luggage, i.e. prams, wheelchairs, skis, bicycles, cages with animals, etc.
In particular, planes flying from Egypt to Russia often have cane furniture bought by passengers as souvenirs placed in these bulk compartments, the experts interviewed by Kommersant said.
Experts from Egypt, the Interstate Aviation Committee (representing Russia), France, and the U.S. came to this conclusion after laying out the A321's fragments in a hangar at Cairo's airport, the newspaper said.
The surviving elements of the airliner's skin were laid out on the ground to imitate the fuselage's projection on a plane. The next stage would have been 3D modeling, in which suspicious fragments were supposed to be mounted on a special wooden frame. However, as a source close to the investigation told Kommersant, it eventually turned out that there was no need for this.
While the bomb was not very powerful, its blast immediately tore off the aircraft's tail assembly, sending the plane into an uncontrollable dive, it said.
"The layout also helped roughly reconstruct the crime, which apparently involved an employee of Sharm el-Sheikh airport's services hired by terrorists, who serviced the Kogalymavia flight to St. Petersburg on October 31, 2015," it said.
The passengers' suitcases and bags were placed in the main cargo compartments in the lower sections of the A321's fuselage.
"As for the off-size items, they were transported toward the aircraft parked on the tarmac by a special loader, in whose operation the terrorists' accomplices were involved. These people had to load the cargo through the bulk compartment's door located on the right side of the airliner's aft section, and therefore they apparently brought a small package with a bomb into the plane first: it has been determined that the explosion occurred on the floor in the left side of the compartment. The device was then blocked by prams and furniture and so was reliably covered from prying eyes," Kommersant said.
The bomb went off about 22 minutes into the flight. Experts cited by the newspaper tend to presume that most of the A321 passengers sustained grave barotraumas and were exposed to tremendous g-force, and therefore died in midair.
An A321 of the Russian airline Metrojet (Kogalymavia) en route from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg crashed in the Sinai Peninsula on October 31, 2015, killing all 224 people onboard.