The BBC also reported the region the plane disappeared in is now a battleground between Egyptian security forces and Islamic insurgents, with al-Qaeda affiliates claiming responsibility for several terrorist attacks.
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The ISIS version of events contradicts Egyptian security sources, who have said early investigations suggest the plane crashed due to a technical fault. The news wire quoted a statement from the group, where it claimed the strike to be “in response to Russian airstrikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land” and said “You who kill will be killed”.
A Russian passenger plane crashed in northern Sinai on Saturday, killing all 217 passengers and 7 crew members. “They were all killed, thanks be to God”, its statement read.
According to the New York Times, in the first half of 2015, Egypt and its southern Sinai beaches were the single most popular foreign destination for Russian tourists, and a few three million or so Russian tourists visited the country in 2014, making up a third of all visitors to the country that year, according to the AP.
The Egyptian Cabinet also announced that the Prime Minister, Minister of Tourism, and Minister of Health have arrived at the crash site in the Al-Hasanah area to oversee ground operations.
“Communication was lost today with the Airbus 321 of Kogalymavia which was carrying out flight 9268 from Sharm el-Sheikh to Saint Petersburg”, Lzvolsky later told Russian television networks.
“The plane split into two, a small part on the tail end that burned and a larger part that crashed into a rock”.
Bodies of plane crash victims are being recovered from the crash site, the Russian Embassy in Cairo said on its official Twitter account.
A look at the plane’s flight data on the Flight Radar site shows that after taking off from the Red Sea resort, it quickly gained speed and altitude after takeoff.
However, officials later confirmed that there were no survivors. The last communication with the pilot of the Russian plane was while he was flying at 30,000 feet, an official in the Egyptian Air traffic control told reporters. Numerous passengers were reported to be Russians returning from vacations.
Egypt’s North Sinai is home to a two-year-old Islamist insurgency.
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Airbus said it had no independent information on the crash and declined to comment on the aircraft involved. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared October 31 a “day of mourning”, and expressed his “deepest condolences” to the families affected by the crash.
