Investigators are considering a terrorist attack as being among the possible causes of the An-24 airliner crash in Donetsk, Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Voitsyshen has said.
At a briefing on Friday in Donetsk, he said that apart the four possible causes of the crash announced earlier, they were also considering a terrorist attack or a change in weather conditions.
In turn, Deputy Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Volodymyr Porodko said: "Two officers of the investigation department of Donetsk region are working on the investigation team. They are looking into the possibility that foreign objects were placed on board (flammable, explosive items)."
Voitsyshen also said that the presence of three unregistered passenger on board could also speak in favor of this version.
He also noted that the weather tower that the plane hit before overturning could not be the cause of the crash. "It (the plane) just brushed it," the deputy prosecutor general said.
According to him, the black boxes have been removed from the aircraft, but have not been opened yet.
Voitsyshen also said that no alcohol was found in the blood of the flight crew.
According to Chief of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's investigation department Vasyl Farynnyk, the crashed An-24 had a flight certificate valid until April 5, 2013. During the briefing, he also read out the information that the crashed plane had made 32,645 landings and had flown 7,600 hours.
As reported, the An-24 aircraft of South Airlines on flight from Odesa to Donetsk made an emergency landing at Donetsk Sergey Prokofiev International Airport on Wednesday evening. During the landing the aircraft hit a weather tower, the right wing grazed the ground, and then it overturned and its fuselage broke.
A total of 52 people were on board the aircraft, including eight crewmembers. Five people were killed, and nine were hospitalized.
It was a charter flight, and all the passengers were football fans heading for Donetsk to watch Shakhtar Donetsk play Borussia Dortmund.
A criminal case has been opened into the crash on charges of violating the air safety rules that resulted in the death of people. Ukraine's Donetsk Region Prosecutor's Officer is in charge of the inquiry.
