Russian Federation has also kept from blaming the October 31 crash, which killed everyone on board, on terrorists, however President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered a ban on all Egypt flights for the time being.
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Drawing one of the most explicit links yet between Isis and the incident, Philip Hammond said that this did not necessarily mean that the attack was directed from the group’s headquarters in Syria. “If this turns out to be a device planted by an Isil operative or by somebody inspired by Isil then clearly we will have to look again at the level of security we expect to see in airports in areas where Isil is active”, he told BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show.
Russian media said the disaster created many orphans, as many parents left their children with relatives as they went on vacation to Sharm el-Sheikh.
Mr Hammond has already warned that airport security around the world will have to be overhauled if it was confirmed the crash in the Sinai was caused by an Islamic State (IS) bomb. Reps. Peter King, R-N.Y. and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in a joint interview on ABC’s “This Week” that they are close to concluding that a bomb caused the crash.
Britain and the United States, as well as worldwide investigators, suspect a bomb exploded on board of the A321 plane chartered by a Russian tourism firm, but Egyptian officials insist there is no evidence yet of an attack on the plane.
Fears that the crash was caused by Islamist militants led several Western countries, Russian Federation and Turkey to suspend flights to Sharm al-Sheikh, stranding tens of thousands of holidaymakers and dealing a heavy blow to Egypt’s vital tourist industry.
Since the Russian suspension of Egypt flights was announced on Friday, dozens of airliners have been bringing Russian tourists back home, carrying only cabin baggage, while Russian cargo planes were hauling back the rest of their luggage.
CBS News reports that Russian officials have asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to help with forensic analysis.
Roughly three million Russian tourists came to Egypt in 2014, almost a third of all visitors, with most heading to the resorts in the southern Sinai Peninsula or its opposite coast, far off from an insurgency being fought by Islamic militants against the army further north.
The Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement that the authorities will also be bringing over 130 tons of the tourists’ luggage on four cargo planes on Monday.
At the biennial airshow in Dubai, Airbus officials say the company is confident in the safety of its A321 aircraft, including the plane that crashed in Egypt. “We very much hope that it will be possible to resume normal air operations soon”, he told reporters.
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“What happened in Sharm al-Sheikh last week, and to a lesser extent with the…”
