A photo of a soda can that reportedly depicts the kind of bomb that destroyed a Russian airliner in October, killing 224 people, is prompting questions about airline security as investigators probe what is now being treated as an act of terrorism. News outlets including The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the Islamic State released the photo with claims that it found a way to smuggle a similar homemade bomb on board the Metrojet A321 at Sharm El Sheikh International Airport in Egypt. However, some experts questioned the photo, maintaining that a bomb of that size would have had to been placed in a strategic location, such as a fuel line, to destroy an airliner, according to the Journal.
Egyptian investigators haven’t called it a terrorist attack, although their Russian counterparts have acknowledged evidence of a bomb in the Airbus wreckage. The U.S. government also believes a terrorist act caused the jet’s explosion over Egypt, the Journal reported. But officials stopped short of verifying that a bomb made from a soda can was the likely cause, according to a Reuters report on Thursday. An analysis in the Daily Beast discusses the difficulties in investigating such disasters, questioning the claims of responsibility from ISIS for the Metrojet attack. The article also notes questions that linger over the detonation of the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing all 259 people on board.
