Earlier on Saturday Egyptian
air traffic control said they lost contact with the Russian airliner en route
from Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg.
Egypt's prime minister said Saturday a Russian airliner crashed in the Sinai Peninsula. A Metrojet/Kogalymavia A321 en route from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg, Russia's second largest city, crashed near el-Arish in the north of Sinai.
According to a security official at the scene, the
Russian airliner is completely destroyed and all of its passengers are most probably
dead.
The plane went down in a mountainous area in central
Sinai and poor weather conditions have made it difficult for rescue crews to
get to the scene, the officer said. Survivors and bodies of those on board will
be flown to Cairo, he told Reuters.
An Egyptian Health Ministry official said 45 ambulances
were sent to central Sinai's Al-Hasana City, adding that an "emergency
status" was declared.
A source in Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) told RIA Novosti the Kogalymavia Flight 9268 carrying 217 passengers and 7 crew took off from Sharm El-Sheikh at 3:31 GMT and went off radar after 23 minutes of flight. Most of the passengers are said to be Russian tourists, including 17 children.
The Russian A321
captain informed air-traffic controller of technical faults after take-off and
asked for route change, a source in the Sharm el-Sheikh airport told RIA
Novosti.
MENA news agency reported that Egyptian Prime Minister
Sherif Ismail canceled all his scheduled visits on Saturday following the
aircrash. A statement from the prime minister's office said Ismail had formed a
cabinet level crisis committee to deal with the crash.
There were no indications that the Russian Airbus was
shot down, Egyptian security sources said. Egypt's North Sinai is home to a two-year-old
Islamist insurgency and militants affiliated to Islamic State have killed
hundreds of soldiers and police.
Initial reports about the fate of the airliner were
conflicting, with the head of Egypt's central air traffic accident authority
saying the plane was safe and heading for Turkey.
Source: Sputnik News 31-10-2015
