俄客机坠毁事件扑朔迷离

Mystery Deepens Over Russian Airliner Crash in Egypt
俄客机坠毁事件扑朔迷离

MOSCOW ― The mystery deepened Monday over the weekend crash of a Russian charter plane on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt that killed all 224 aboard, with company executives ruling out technical or human error only to be upbraided by aviation officials who called such assertions premature.

莫斯科――上周末，一架俄罗斯包机在埃及西奈半岛坠毁，机上224人全部遇难，本周一，情况变得更加扑朔迷离，因为航空公司高管在声明中排除了技术或人为错误因素，却引起航空官员的驳斥，称下这样断言为时过早。

As representatives from at least five countries joined the investigation of the Airbus jetliner crash, new questions also arose about the aircraft’s repair history and the possibility that a terrorist act felled it on Saturday.

至少五个国家的代表参加了这架空中客车客机坠毁事件的调查工作，过程中还出现了一些新的问题，涉及飞机的维修记录，以及恐怖主义行动的可能性。

The Metrojet flight full of mostly Russian vacationers, bound for St. Petersburg from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh, plummeted after reaching cruising altitude, scattering in chunks and bits across Sinai. The lack of information has combined with unsubstantiated claims by the Islamic State that its militants destroyed the aircraft to avenge Russia’s immersion into the Syria war.

这架Metrojet公司的飞机从埃及度假胜地沙姆沙伊赫飞往圣彼得堡，乘客主要是度假的俄罗斯人。飞机在到达巡航高度后坠落，大大小小的残骸散落在西奈。在信息缺乏的同时，伊斯兰国(Islamic State)也在毫无根据地宣称是其武装分子摧毁了这架飞机，以报复俄罗斯参与叙利亚战争。

Senior officials at Metrojet, the charter company that operated the aircraft, sounded definitive in their insistence that the plane and crew were faultless.

这架飞机的运营方、包机公司Metrojet的高管们用确定的语气表示，飞机和机组人员绝无问题。

“We absolutely exclude the technical failure of the plane, and we absolutely exclude pilot error or a human factor,” Aleksandr A. Smirnov, a former pilot and the airline’s deputy director for aviation, told a packed news conference in Moscow.

“我们绝对排除了飞机技术故障因素，绝对排除了飞行员操作失误或人为因素，”亚历山大・A・斯米尔诺夫(Aleksandr A. Smirnov)在莫斯科一个座无虚席的新闻发布会上宣布。他是该公司的航空副主任，曾经当过飞行员。

Mr. Smirnov said that the crash could have been caused by “an external impact on the plane,” although he did not endorse the theory of a terrorist attack either, saying that the investigation would have to determine the cause.

斯米尔诺夫说，飞机坠毁可能是因为“受到了外部冲击”，不过他也不认同恐怖袭击的说法，称调查工作必须找到真正的原因。

Company officials used only assertive statements to support their position, and they did not provide any documentation to back up their claim that both the plane and its personnel were in top flying condition.

公司高层用来支持这种说法的只有言之凿凿的声明，并没有提供任何文件来证明飞机和机组人员处在最佳飞行状态。

Hours after the Metrojet news conference, the Russian government contradicted the company’s assertions.

在Metrojet新闻发布会结束几个小时之后，俄罗斯政府反驳了该公司的说法。

“Such a statement is premature and is not based on any real facts,” Alexander Neradko, the head of the federal Air Transportation Agency, said on the Rossiya-24 news channel. “Much more work will have to be done on a detailed study of the plane’s constructive elements; flight recorders will have to be deciphered and analyzed.”

“这种声明为时过早，而且没有任何事实依据，”俄罗斯联邦航空运输署(Federal Air Transport Agency)署长亚历山大・尼拉德科(Alexander Neradko)在俄罗斯24电视台(Rossiya 24)表示。“需要做更多工作，对飞机的构成要件进行详细研究；需要破译并分析飞行记录器。”

Mr. Neradko also said Egypt was keeping tight control over data from the flight recorders and other instruments. “The Egyptian commission is conducting the investigation, and is giving no records and transcripts, be it of the flight recorders or on-ground recorders or radar data, to anyone,” he said.

尼拉德科还表示，埃及严密控制飞行记录器中的数据及其他仪器。他说，“埃及相关委员会正在开展调查，没有将记录或副本交给任何人，无论是飞行记录器或地面记录器，还是雷达数据。”

Mohamed Rahma, a spokesman for Egypt’s civil aviation ministry, said on Monday that Egyptian investigators still at the crash site had all but finished the work of recovering the bodies. The remains of 196 passengers were being flown to Russia, he said.

埃及民航部发言人穆罕默德・拉赫马(Mohamed Rahma)在周一表示，仍在飞机坠毁现场的埃及调查人员差不多完成了寻找遗体的工作。他表示，196名乘客的遗体正在空运回俄罗斯。

The investigation team, which included French, German, Russian, Egyptian and Irish investigators, would download and analyze data from the flight recorders, he said, with no data analysis started yet.

他表示，由法国、德国、俄罗斯、埃及和爱尔兰调查人员组成的调查小组将会下载并分析飞机记录器的数据，数据分析工作尚未开始。

Metrojet officials also dismissed claims by the Islamic State that its operatives felled the plane. They said a blurry video purporting to show a missile strike on the plane appeared to be fake.

Metrojet高管还驳斥了伊斯兰国的说法，该组织声称其特工击落了这架飞机。他们表示，一段据称显示了飞机遭到导弹袭击的模糊视频看起来是假的。