Egyptian airport and security officials told The Associated Press on Saturday that authorities were questioning airport staff and ground crew who worked on the plane and had placed a few employees under surveillance.
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Aspris said the remaining aircraft returned to the United Kingdom without any passengers.
Their arrival followed earlier confusion between British and Egyptian authorities over the timing of planned rescue flights.
The British government held a meeting of its crisis response committee in London on Friday to review the situation at Sharm el-Sheikh airport. Russian officials and tourism experts say there’s about 30,000 to 40,000 Russians now in Egypt.
An Egyptian source close to the investigation of the Russian plane’s black boxes said on Wednesday the cause of the crash was believed to be an explosion, but it was not clear whether that was the result of a bomb.
The unconfirmed reports of the possible involvement of British Jihadists in the attack comes after British intelligence was out in front of the rest of the world in concluding that a bomb most likely took down the plane. “I didn’t think we would come back”, Emma Turner, a 34-year-old from Kent in southeast England, said after getting off at easyJet flight.
“Biblio Globus is offering Cyprus today”, Tyurina said. The Russian Emergencies Ministry also said it would send planes to transport the checked baggage of Russian tourists who were forced to leave their suitcases behind. All 224 people onboard were killed. Although most of the debris is scattered over almost eight square miles in the desert, a few parts of the plane were taken to Russian Federation for analysis.
Ivan Zaitsev, who works in the printing industry, was in a long, snaking line Saturday of Russian and Kazakh tourists with his wife and young son.
IS Egypt had claimed responsibility for the attack in response to Russia’s support for the Syrian regime, but the claims had until now been dismissed. Those tourists can only bring hand luggage aboard. “This is the main issue now”. It didn’t explain how passengers would be reunited with their luggage. The “chatter” included a boast of how the plane was brought down. The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Russian Federation on Friday banned flights to Egypt until the country raises its aviation security standards.
Also Saturday, Egypt’s foreign minister complained that Western governments had not sufficiently helped Egypt in its war on terrorism.
Other countries “did not show a level of cooperation and direct targeting of these organizations that we hoped for”, Shoukry said. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the new protocols apply to fewer than 10 overseas airports in “the region in which the Sinai Peninsula is located”.
Islamic State extremists claimed they brought down the Metrojet flight, without offering proof, saying it was in retaliation for Moscow’s airstrikes that began a month earlier against fighters in Syria.
All major travel operators, including Pegas Touristik and Coral Travel, have offered this very destination, as the weather there is still warm, she said. The plane broke apart and fell 30,000 feet.
Denmark, Norway and Finland have joined several countries in telling their citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Egypt’s resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Egypt maintains there is nothing wrong with the Sharm el-Sheikh airport, the main entry to Sinai beach resorts. Finland made a similar recommendation.
“If such information exists, and judging by what the Foreign Secretary has said it does, no one has passed it to the Russian side”.
“They were clearly celebrating”, NBC Nightly News quoted a US official as saying.
Nicky Bull, a human resources manager, said she thought many people would “question whether they ever want to go to Egypt again”.
The Russian airliner crashed October 31, about 20 minutes after taking off from an Egyptian resort area. Thomson said there was “no cause for concern” for further flights.
It gained currency when it was expressed publicly by British Prime Minister David Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama, though neither called it a certainly.
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But on Friday, the head of Russian intelligence, Alexander Bortnikov, recommended a suspension of all flights to Egypt “until we determine the real reasons of what happened”, and President Vladimir Putin quickly agreed.
