Investigators continue to seek cause of Russian jet crash

SOCHI, Russia -- Investigators sorted through debris pulled from the Black Sea -- a wheel, mangled seat frames, a metal fragment with jagged holes -- trying on Saturday to determine why a Russian airliner exploded, killing 78 people.

Emergency workers continued to search for bodies and plane fragments that could serve as evidence, but bad weather slowed their efforts. A helicopter scheduled to fly low over the crash site so experts could inspect it could not make the trip because of heavy, low cloud cover.

The Tupolev 154, en route from Tel Aviv, Israel to Novosibirsk, Russia, exploded and crashed into the sea Thursday 114 miles off the Russian coastal city of Adler, near Sochi. Most of the 66 passengers were recent Russian immigrants to Israel, and many were heading back to their homeland to visit relatives over the Jewish Sukkot holiday.

U.S. intelligence officials have said the plane was hit by a Ukrainian missile during exercises. After initially dismissing the U.S. allegations, Russian officials appeared to be considering the possibility Saturday.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said President Vladimir Putin had been dissatisfied with the information that Ukraine had sent to Moscow on its military exercises, saying it had been inadequate. Ivanov said he asked for more, including technical details on the missile launches.

"All versions must be considered, including the interconnection with the Ukrainian air defense exercises," Ivanov said in comments broadcast on Russian television.

Like Ukrainian officials, Ivanov had previously denied even the possibility that a Ukrainian missile could have brought the plane down. On Friday, he said dismissively that the "so-called version" of events had been "launched by the media" -- and asked the Pentagon to send proof of its assertion.

In a telephone conversation Saturday night, Putin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma agreed that no theory should be ruled out. Earlier in the day, Kuchma had reiterated Ukraine's stance that a missile strike was impossible.

"The missiles' route was completely different from that of the airplane," Kuchma said during a visit to Poland.

Vladimir Rushailo, the head of Putin's security council, told reporters in Sochi on Saturday that investigators confirmed the plane was "hit by an explosion." He said a large number of similar punctures were found on fragments from the body of the plane and its interior.

He said that "objects" that were not part of the plane had also been found and said they were being examined for identification. He refused to comment on what those objects might be.

However, two officials involved with the salvage effort described a cylindrical object that they could not immediately identify.

"An object that looked like a wooden log was floating in the water. It was oval, a dark color and it was mostly under the water. Its length was 15-20 meters (50-66 feet)," said Sergei Kargin, deputy head of the Sochi rescuers' service.

Vyacheslav Petrov, a helicopter pilot for the Emergency Situations Ministry, said it was "an object of cylindrical form, in vertical position, like a fishing bob."

U.S. intelligence officials believe the plane was hit by a Ukrainian S-200, or SA-5, missile -- a large surface-to-air missile built to shoot down heavy bombers flying at high altitudes.

The New York Times on Saturday quoted an unidentified official at the Severny Zavod missile factory saying that similar missiles down aircraft not by ramming them, but by blasting them with shrapnel. It is not unusual for the body of the missile to survive the attack, the source said.

The United States tracked the missile during a Ukrainian military exercise with satellites that sense the heat of its launch, and officials said the time of the launch coincided with the disaster.

A total of 14 bodies and the fragments of one other body have been recovered and brought to Sochi, deputy prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky said. Three of the passengers have been identified with the help of relatives from Novosibirsk, he said.

More relatives arrived from other Siberian cities Saturday. They were kept away from journalists and were met at the airport by a special bus.

As they filed wearily past TV cameras from the bus into a hotel, some pleaded with reporters to give them space. "We can barely walk. Please, leave us alone," said an elderly woman wearing a black head scarf.