Aircraft specialists were skeptical that two planes could have failed on their own at the same time. "Theoretically it's possible, but only theoretically," said Yuri Chervakov, an engineer at the company that makes MiG warplanes. "The chances are so tiny that we can't talk about it seriously."
The two planes took off from Moscow's Domodedovo Airport within about 40 minutes of each other Tuesday night, bound for separate destinations in southern Russia. Volga-Aviaexpress Flight 1303, a Tu-134 heading for Volgograd with 35 passengers and nine crew members, disappeared from radar screens at 10:56 p.m., according to Irina Andrianova, a spokeswoman at the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Sibir Flight 1047, a Tu-154 heading for Sochi with 38 passengers and eight crew members, vanished three minutes later.
The first plane smashed into the ground about a mile from the village of Buchalki in the Tula region, more than 100 miles south of Moscow. Residents described hearing a rumbling series of explosions similar to thunder, a noise officials said was probably the sound of the crash rather than a bomb blast.
"There were sort of knocks on the window, boom-boom," Nikolai Gorokhov, a resident, told NTV television. "I thought it was a thunderstorm again, and then there was a very long drawn-out roar and then everything died out."
The wreckage was scattered around a field of tall grass, the tail about half a mile from the plane's body. A book with its pages partially torn fell on one man's garage. Two bodies landed in a woman's field.
The second plane came down in a remote area near the village of Gluboky about 82 miles north of Rostov-on-Don. The spot was so isolated that rescue squads were not able to find it until well past dawn, nine hours after the crash. A tattered shoe lay among giant shards of ripped metal.
Bewildered relatives of passengers and crew spent the day trying to find out what had happened to them. The gas monopoly Gazprom lost its local general director in Volgograd and another executive. "For our company, for our team, it's a real shock," said Sergei Ledashov, an official with the firm. "This was an absolutely regular business trip. They made it all the time."
At Domodedovo Airport, a handful of relatives were shepherded Wednesday to a makeshift information center in a decrepit building. They pored over lists amid a huddle of police, airport officials, psychologists and journalists. One man, who declined to give his name, said he found a missing friend's name on a reservations list, but Sibir could not confirm that he had boarded the plane because he was not on a still-incomplete passenger list.
At midafternoon, airline officials fielded frantic phone calls and continued trying to figure out exactly who had been on board. "As you would expect, people are in a panic," said Maxim Yeryomenko, a security official at the information center.
Regardless of the cause, some politicians said the episode demonstrated Russia's vulnerability to terrorism and should compel the government to do more to protect its citizens. "President Putin has done what he could," said Gennady Gudkov, a former KGB officer who now serves in parliament. "But today we have to make more efforts. They need to be bigger."
Correspondent Peter Finn contributed to this report.
