Several American media outlets reported Monday citing defence sources that a US infrared satellite had detected a heat flash over Sinai at the time of the incident, which could indicate a bomb or a device like a fuel tank may have exploded.
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Was a midair heat flash that a USA satellite detected over the Sinai Peninsula when the flight went down a sign of an explosion aboard the plane?
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the devastating MetroJet Flight 9268 tragedy, but Egyptian and Russian officials, as well as military analysts, doubt the militant group had a sophisticated enough missile system to down the plane. In a statement on Twitter, the militants said they brought the plane down in response to Russian airstrikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land.
IS claimed to have brought down the Russian Metrojet plane, killing all 224 people aboard, shortly after it crashed on Saturday.
Metrojet ruled out “a technical fault of the plane or a pilot error” at a news conference in Moscow on Monday.
Within hours of the crash, the Egyptian affiliate of ISIL based in the Sinai claimed it had downed the jet in retaliation for Russian air strikes targeting fellow extremists in Syria.
The circumstances of the crash are still under investigation.
U.S. global intelligence company Stratfor said that Egyptian security personnel often take bribes for allowing passengers to avoid checks, with cargo security screenings in the country also not being strict enough.
Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said in televised remarks that Russian experts already had conducted a preliminary inspection of the recorders and had seen information from Egypt’s flight control radars, but he wouldn’t give further details. Senior Kogalymavia executive Alexander Smirnov said Monday that “no technical failures” could account for why the Airbus 321 would have broken up in mid-air.
Mahjoob, the airport official, said there was no evidence of a terrorist attack. The finding suggests an explosion took place inside the aircraft, which was flying from the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg.
In his first public appearance since the crash, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on television on 2 November to offer his condolences to those touched by the disaster.
An investigation by aviation experts using data from the aircraft’s “black boxes” has yet to give its conclusions.
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Russian news agencies say the government will be dispatching a second plane to bring back more remains later in the day.
