CAIRO: A Russian passenger plane with 224 people on board crashed in a mountainous part of Egypt‘s Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, leaving no survivors, officials said. The chartered plane had taken off from the south Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh bound for Saint Petersburg and lost contact with air traffic control 23 minutes later before crashing in the restive peninsula.
Victor Sorochenko, the head of Russia‘s Interstate Aviation Committee, said it was too early to conclude what caused the crash on Saturday, October 31. He told reporters debris was found across a 20sq km-wide area of Sinai. So far 163 bodies have been found. The plane’s black boxes have been found and sent for analysis, officials said.
Mr Sorochenko spoke after visiting the site of the debris, near the village of Hasana. The head of Russia’s Air Transport Agency, Aleksandr Neradko, said that “all signs attest to the fact that the aircraft disintegrated in the air at a high altitude”.
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An affiliate of terrorist group ISIS has claimed responsibility for the Russian plane disaster.
The claim of responsibility for the crash that killed all 224 people on board was also carried by the Aamaq website, which acts as a semi-official news agency for Islamic State.
“The fighters of the Islamic State were able to down a Russian plane over Sinai province carrying over 220 Russian crusaders. “They were all killed, thanks be to god,” the statement circulated on Twitter said.
However, Egyptian Prime Minister Sharif Ismail said experts had confirmed that a plane could not be downed at 9,450m (31,000ft), the altitude the Airbus 321 was flying at, by weapons the militants are known to possess.
A number of major airlines – Emirates, Air France-KLM, Lufthansa, and Qatar Airways – have decided not to fly over the Sinai Peninsula until more information is available. Two smaller carriers, flydubai and Air Arabia, also said they would re-route flights, while Etihad Airways said avoid only “certain areas of airspace” over Sinai.