structural member being lost or a bomb on board. >> let's talk about what we do know about this particular plane's structural integrity. this metrojet, the tail of this very plane struck a runway somehow in cairo in 2001. what would the connection between that incident and this crash, what could it possibly be? >> it would be the nature of the repair and how good the repair was. tail strikes happen several times a year in the united states alone. i'd probably say on estimate maybe every other month we have a major plane with a tail strike. it depends on how it's repaired. now if this plane had great service and great inspections and we would know that the repair was good and held, but, for example, in the crash of japan airlines 123 in 1985, there, a tail strike repair did not hold, it blew out. it caused a rapid decompression and the plane was uncontrollable. however, the difference between that one and this one, in that case, the airplane was able to