Following the Russian plane crash in Sinai’s Sharm El Sheikh that killed 224 people, Russian and United Kingdom authorities have started evacuating all their citizens out of Egypt.
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Russia, which lost the most people in the disaster, has stopped all flights to Egypt and Britain has halted air travel to Sharm, while several other countries have warned their nationals not to fly to the resort due to security fears.
“ISIS may have concluded that the best way to defeat airport defenses is not to go through them but to go around them with the help of somebody on the inside”, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who has received classified briefings on the investigation, said on ABC News’ “This Week” Sunday.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the incident could lead to changes in flight security. About 11,000 people had been flown back to Russia, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told Russian media Sunday.
The view also contrasts with the cautious stance taken by Egyptian officials, who are in charge of the main investigation into the air crash and insist that no conclusion has been reached yet.
Passengers board an Egyptair Express plane bound for Cairo at Sharm el-Sheikh Airport, south Sinai, Egypt, Monday, November 9, 2015. The Metrojet plane crashed shortly after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh last Saturday.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has remained tight-lipped but cancelled all flights between Russian Federation and Egypt as Isis’ claim of responsibility gained traction.
Tourists arriving at Sharm el-Sheikh airport for flights scheduled for 11am Egyptian time were met with scenes which a few described as chaotic.
How is a plane crash investigated? Church bells rang 224 times to commemorate the number of victims from the crash. “We don’t know what happened exactly”.
Militants of the Islamic State terror group in the Sinai Peninsula have claimed that they downed the plane, and Mr McLoughlin said there was now a “high probability” that a bomb in the hold was to blame.
“Right now all the evidence points in that direction”, King said.
A team of investigators from five countries, along with advisers from Airbus, are now examining the wreckage of the Russian plane in Cairo while analysis will try to identify the cause of the “noise”.
“If it was a terrorist act, I don’t think it was directed exactly against Russian Federation”.
Sameh Shoukry said no other countries had given the Egyptian government access to their information.
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The two heads of state also agreed that the “two nations’ corresponding agencies” will “maintain active cooperation, including by coordinating actions between Russian and Egyptian security agencies and aviation authorities”.
