ADLER, Russia (AP) - A Russian airliner carrying at least 76 people from Israel exploded and plunged into the Black Sea on Thursday, raising fears of a terrorist attack. But U.S. officials said a missile fired during Ukrainian military exercises apparently downed the plane.Russian President Vladimir Putin said terrorists may have caused the crash and he had no reason to doubt a Ukrainian denial stressing that missiles used in the exercise did not have the range to reach the airliner.
However, a senior U.S. administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was no evidence of terrorism and that a Ukrainian military exercise probably led to the crash.
The chartered Tupolev 154 went down in pieces 114 miles off the Russian coastal city of Adler, located on the Georgian border, said Vasily Yurchuk of the Emergency Situations Ministry.
The Sibir Airlines plane was on its way from Tel Aviv to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, about 1,750 miles east of Moscow, Yurchuk said.
An Armenian airline pilot flying nearby witnessed the explosion and crash.
President Bush, who spoke to Putin by telephone Thursday, said he was deeply saddened.
A Defense Department official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a long-range anti-aircraft missile - believed to be an S-200 - appeared to have hit the plane after being launched from the Crimean region of Ukraine.
Senior military and administration officials had initial doubts about the terrorism claims, raising suspicions for hours in the upper reaches of government, including the White House.
PHOTO CAPTION:
An unidentified relative of a passenger of a downed Sibir Airlines flight weeps as he arrives at Ben Gurion International airport near Tel Aviv, Israel where the flight originated, Thursday Oct. 4, 2001. All outgoing flights at Ben Gurion, Israel's main airport, were grounded for about four hours Thursday after the Russian airliner with at least 76 people aboard, many of them Israelis, exploded and crashed into the Black Sea. The Sibir Airlines flight took off from Tel Aviv on Thursday morning and washeaded to Novosibirsk in Siberia. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)