Associated Press
ADLER, Russia — A Russian airliner carrying at least 76 people from Israel exploded and plunged into the Black Sea Thursday, raising fears of a terrorist attack. But U.S. officials said a missile fired during Ukrainian military exercises apparently downed the plane.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said terrorists may have caused the crash and he had no reason to doubt a Ukrainian denial stressing that missiles used in the exercise did not have the range to reach the airliner.
However, a senior U.S. administration official said there was no evidence of terrorism and that a Ukrainian military exercise probably led to the crash.
The chartered Tupolev 154 went down in pieces 114 miles off the Russian coastal city of Adler, located on the Georgian border, said Vasily Yurchuk of the Emergency Situations Ministry.
The Sibir Airlines plane was on its way from Tel Aviv to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, about 1,750 miles east of Moscow, Yurchuk said.
An Armenian airline pilot flying nearby witnessed the explosion and crash.
"I saw the explosion on the plane, which was above me at an altitude of 36,300 feet," said Garik Ovanisian. "The plane fell into the sea, and there was another explosion in the sea. After that I saw a big white spot on the sea and I had the impression that oil was burning."
A Defense Department official in Washington, D.C., said a long-range anti-aircraft missile, believed to be an S-200, appeared to have hit the plane after being launched from the Crimean region of Ukraine.
The S-200 can fly faster than three times the speed of sound, has a range of up to 185 miles and can hit targets above 100,000 feet, according to several military publications.
Putin said he believed Ukraine when it said a missile from its military exercises did not bring down the flight. He told a delegation of European justice ministers that "it is possible that it is the result of a terrorist act."
All the passengers were Israeli citizens, many of them new immigrants to Israel en route to Russia for family visits, said Sergei Mosalyov, a duty officer at the Emergency Situations Ministry.
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