Egyptian State Media supplied image of the tail area of Metrojet 9268

Leaks about the evidence found on cockpit voice recorders and from forensic examinations of the victims of an airliner crash like that of the Metrojet flight that came down in Egypt’s Sinai can be taken seriously when there are no immediate official denials.

Which means that there was sudden chaos in the cockpit of the Russian charter company’s A321 on Saturday when it abruptly fell out of the sky 23 minutes after leaving Sharm el-Sheikh for St Petersburg that prevented an emergency call being made.

And which also means passengers seated in the rear of the jet suffered severe burns and in many cases dismemberment from a fire and explosion.

Reports link the cockpit sounds black box leak to Cairo, where Egypt has started a crash investigation, and the forensic disclosures to the teams examining and identifying bodies taken to St Petersburg.

Both leaks occurred in jurisdictions where critically important wide circulation reports like this seldom happen without the tacit if not active sponsorship of the state.

To add to the signs of an explosive and fiery event on board Metrojet 9268,NBC News learned that a US surveillance satellite, intended to warn in real time of nuclear tests and rocket launches, as well as less catastrophic hostile acts, registered a heat ‘bloom’ matching the time and location of the airline’s sudden disablement over the Sinai Peninsula.

That leak is, if verified, of historic importance beyond flight 9268, because it is the first time an unequivocal statement of surveillance capabilities of this nature has been made in relation to a plane crashing, being shot down, or going missing.

There were abundant hints about such surveillance in relation to the disappearance of MH370 on 8 March 2014 and the 17 July 2014 shoot down of MH17 over eastern Ukraine,  but nothing as concise as this.

(For followers of reputable US defence watch bulletins, these more precise capabilities may also be comparatively recent, building on previous less accurate systems.)

Speculation as to why the US might show its hand in such surveillance in relation to Metrojet 9268 must ask about a decision that could be about using it as a pretext for notifying China, and Russia, of the precision of the latest heat detecting capabilities of its surveillance platforms.  A timely if tragic pretext for getting the message out.

On the ground the evidence is undeniable when it comes to a mid-air break up, despite some contrary official claims, and the tail area of the Metrojet continues to attract attention.

The rudder is missing from the tail structure that housed it. The rudder is an essential control surface for an airliner.  Finding the rudder and determining if it came off before the larger tail sections of the jet broke away from the fuselage, or afterwards, because of severe aerodynamic stresses, is important.

In summary, the officially tolerated signs are that there was an explosion or fire on board Metrojet 9268  at the moment a severe upset occurred that the pilots could neither describe nor control as the jet fell to earth.

The cockpit voice recorder leak being widely reported refers to an unusual mechanical noise. The inference is that this was a destructive event. The black box flight recorders, the other being the flight data recorder, stop the moment their power supply is interrupted.

Similarly, the reason Flightradar24 only recorded 20 seconds of the event’s effects on the vertical speed of the jet is most likely because the A321 had become so damaged that it was no longer capable of transmitting flight information, when it was at more than 28,000 feet after having rapidly surged upwards to more than 33,000 feet from 31,000 feet and then falling to around 27,000 feet before recommencing a sharp upwards path.