Flight KGL9268 was only 22 minutes into its journey when it disappeared from radar screens over the Sinai Peninsula, having apparently broken up in midair. The disaster carries sinister echoes of earlier tragedies—not least the explosion of Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. But with a concrete explanation so far not forthcoming, what do we actually know?
Any findings from the plane’s flight recorder which apparently captured “unusual sounds,” are yet to be made public. That has left plenty of space for theorizing and competing explanations.
Since this particular plane sustained a tail strike when it hit the runway in Cairo in 2001, one theory is a technical fault, similar to the 1985 fate of Japan Airlines Flight 123, where the aircraft’s tail fell off in flight—the resulting crash killing 520 people.
But along with the chairman of Egypt’s civilian airport stating the technical checks on the aircraft prior to takeoff were successful, the aviation authorities have claimed all the certifications of Flight KGL9268 were satisfactory—and human error by the aircrew has already been ruled out by the airline.
