Silence of black boxes leaves Russia in limbo over cause of double air tragedy

Russia observed a day of mourning yesterday for the 89 people who perished in Tuesday's double aircraft disaster as, in the face of public outrage, the authorities again insisted they needed more time to say whether it was terrorism or a freak accident.

Russia observed a day of mourning yesterday for the 89 people who perished in Tuesday's double aircraft disaster as, in the face of public outrage, the authorities again insisted they needed more time to say whether it was terrorism or a freak accident.

Flags flew at half mast, light entertainment items were pulled from television and theatres, and minutes of silence were observed across the world's largest country as among the dead were revealed to be honeymooning couples and holidaymakers.

Rescue workers said they had recovered the bodies of all 89 victims while the relatives of the deceased began the grim task of identifying their loved ones. Many of them were pictured in shock, cradling their heads in their hands while they were counselled by psychologists at Domodedovo international airport, where both planes began their journeys.

The families are in line to receive 112,000 roubles (£2,200) in compensation but will get little or nothing if it is proven to be the work of terrorists since Russian airlines do not insure against such eventualities.

Mr Putin yesterday ordered the Russian Interior Ministry to take control of airport security, stripping airport operators of the responsibility. The government had hoped that two black box flight recorders found at the crash sites would yield crucial clues as to why two passenger airliners, which left from the same airport within 40 minutes of each other, would break up in midair within three minutes of one another.

But officials said both black boxes were badly damaged and would need to be painstakingly pieced together.

Vladimir Yakovlev, the President's envoy in the south of the country, where one of the planes crashed, said they had proved disappointing. "The tapes... did not show anything. Practically speaking they switched themselves off immediately [before the disasters] and we failed to get anything." Mr Yakovlev was one of the few officials bold enough to say that terrorism remained the principal theory.

Vladimir Ustinov, the country's prosecutor general, appeared on television telling Mr Putin that terrorism was a real possibility while Sibir, the company which operated one of the planes, said yesterday that the way in which the wreckage had fallen indicated that the aircraft had been blown up.

Others, including the FSB (the security service) and Igor Levitin, the Transport Minister, who is presiding over a commission of inquiry, have preferred to tread a more cautious path. They stress instead the possibility that human error or poor fuel quality may have been to blame and say it is far too early to jump to conclusions.

"The main version is violation of the planes' maintenance," said Sergei Ignachenko, a spokesman for the FSB. "Judging by the fragments of the planes, it is possible to say that there were no terrorist attacks on the planes."

The Russian media and the public at large appear to have little time for such muted pronouncements, however, with most people convinced that the disaster was the work of Chechen separatist rebels.

The Kremlin does not want to admit it was a terrorist act, many speculate, because there are crunch presidential elections in Chechnya on Sunday expected to be easily won by a Moscow-friendly candidate.

Mr Putin, it is said, does not want to risk inflaming Chechen public opinion and rocking the boat until voting is over.

The daily newspaper Kommersant wrote: "It looks like the authorities simply do not want to admit an obvious fact before the Chechen elections that only Chechen fighters are capable of carrying out terrorist attacks on such a scale."

The newspaper quoted one FSB source who condemned his colleagues for rushing to rule out terrorism "before they had even got down to work", and another intelligence source, allegedly on the investigative team, was quoted as predicting that everything would soon become clear.

"Wait until the end of the week [after the election]. Everything will be cleared up. Until then let them call it 'hooliganism' or say that the catastrophes were caused, say, by a technical failing or poor quality fuel. It's just playing with words. This is dictated by the situation," he said.

The atmosphere in Chechnya ahead of this Sunday's elections is tense.

Rebels launched an audacious attack on the Chechen capital, Grozny, last week and the elections themselves are being held to find a replacement for Akhmad Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed President who was murdered in May.

The rebels say the poll is illegitimate and that the winner will be a Kremlin-backed puppet who they will murder at the first opportunity.