“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.
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Russian civilian plane carrying 224 people crashed in Sinai on Saturday, the Egyptian Prime Minister said, amid earlier conflicting reports that the plane was safely continuing its journey.
Egypt’s Civil Aviation authority said the plane wreckage has been found in near the central town of Hassana area, south of the northern port of Arish.
Later, the same official, Ayman al-Muqadem, said the plane has crashed and that the pilot, before losing contact, had radioed that the aircraft was experiencing technical problems and that he meant to try and land at the nearest airport.
The plane took off from Sinai’s Sharm el-Sheikh, a popular destination for Russian tourists, at 5.51am local time and disappeared from radar screens 23 minutes after take-off, a statement carried by Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency said.
Officials were gathering at a hotel adjacent to the St. Petersburg airport, where Egyptian officials say the plane was heading with 217 passengers and 7 crew members. The reported time lapse between takeoff and loss of contact with the aircraft means that the plane was possibly flying at a cruising altitude of a few 30,000 feet when it crashed. It usually operates under the name Metrojet and is not among companies blacklisted by the European Union over their poor safety record.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to form a commission on Kolavia’s plane crash in Egypt, the Kremlin press service reported on Saturday.
A Russian aviation authority source confirmed that radar contact was lost with the passenger jet, according to RIA news agency.
Reuters news agency has quoted officers at the crash site as saying there might be survivors.
The 148 people aboard that flight, most of whom were French, were killed.
Russian media are reporting that at least five of the 17 children on board have died in the incident and their bodies have been pulled from the wreckage.
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The resort, and others dotting the southern Sinai Red Sea coast, are heavily secured by the military and police as an Islamist militant insurgency rages in the north of the restive peninsula, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.
