Given that this means another draconian ratcheting up of
airport security, does the October 31, 2015 Metrojet Flight 9268 crash become
another post 9/11 geopolitical game changer?
By: Ringo Bones
The incident is not only tragic, but also conspiracy theory
laden as well. Before the European investigators point to the cause of the
crash with 99-percent certainty as a smuggled explosive device based on the
recovered flight data recorders / black boxes, Russian publications loyal to
the strongman Vladimir Putin already published articles pointing the blame on
MI-5, CIA agents and even a handful of Ukrainians currently fighting for
Islamic State / Daesh, and this was a few hours before Islamic State / Daesh
claimed responsibility for successfully smuggling an explosive device onboard
Metrojet Flight 9268. But will this tragic incident change the geopolitical
tempo on how Vladimir Putin’s Russia deals with Islamic State / Daesh Syrian
home-base?
The aircraft was an Airbus A321-231 operated by the Russian
airline company Kogalymavia – branded as Metrojet to non native Russian
speakers that exploded in mid air over northern Sinai back in October 31, 2015
was carrying 217 passengers and 7 crew members. A majority of them were Russian
and the flight was en route from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg. Russian
conspiracy theorists loyal to Vladimir Putin were quick to point the blame at Russia’s
“Western enemies” as a supposed payback for the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17
that was “allegedly” shot down by a BUK surface-to-air missile last year by
Russian loyalists over the contested Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
Stranger still, before the flight data recorders / black
boxes were recovered by investigators, a Pentagon reconnaissance satellite that
was scheduled to overfly the Sinai region managed to “see” the midair explosion
of the Metrojet Flight 9268 in real time but was shelved by the analysts who
were manning the satellite at the time because they thought that it could just
be a car-sized meteorite exploding high over the northern Sinai region. Whatever
the powers-that-be decide to do with the facts currently on the table with
regards to the tragic crash of Metrojet Flight 9268, it would still be us
civilians who will bear the brunt of increased and very intrusive airport
security checks.
