[Navy Patriot]

Aleksandr Smirnov, Kolavia fleet supervisor claims the aircraft was broken apart by outside forces.

The entire Russian government calls this premature, and speculation.

[Vermont Lt]

I would wonder what the owner’s insurance company has told them about paying out claims.

I would be an act of terror would make them a whole lot less liable than the tail falling off.

My guess is a bomb. But I don’t have a dog in the fight.

[Carriage Hill]

Just a guess: we’ll never know the truth.

[butlerweave]

Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashed because of a Botched Repair ,same thing here

[Biggirl]

Could it be an excuse to go all out against ISIS?

[wattsgnu]

I’m no expert on these things, but in a chat room, they put a registration number of EI-ETJ which is this plane and it used to be F-OHMP which had a hard hit on landing on its tail in 2001.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20011116-0
The following page is where it seems to be the same plane..
http://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/plane-a321-663.htm

[justlurking]

I would wait to see what the black box says.

Flight data reported by the transponder indicates the airplane had wide oscillations in altitude before breaking up. The flight data isn't perfectly reliable, but I think it's enough to indicate that it wasn't a sudden explosion in flight, which would have terminated the data reporting.

It could indicate they were caught in convective activity, but I haven't followed this closely to determine if they were in the vicinity of thunderstorms. At that speed, they are already in the "yellow arc" -- which means the structural limits of the airplane can be exceeded by sudden updrafts or downdraft.

The airplane did have a tail strike over a decade ago. If pitch control was lost or compromised, they would have lost the ability to maintain altitude.