Russia´s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev admitted Monday that a plane crash in Egypt´s Sinai peninsula that killed 224 people was possibly a terrorist attack.
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Thousands of Russian tourists were returning home from Egypt on Sunday, as suspicions mount that a bomb may have caused the crash of a St. Petersburg-bound charter jet over the Sinai on October 31. He says it could have been a fuel tank or lithium batteries exploding, and “all scenarios are being considered”.
According to the Daily Mail, a Thomson Airways flight from London Stansted to Sharm El-Sheikh, carrying 189 passengers, took “evasive action” and “dodged the missile” after the pilot spotted it just 300 meters away.
Britain has pointed the finger at shortcomings in Egyptian airport security after blaming last month’s Russian plane crash on a bomb smuggled on board.
No airlines are taking passengers from the United Kingdom directly to Sharm.
On Friday, Yaalon’s senior adviser on Middle East affairs, Amos Gilad, voiced concern that premature global speculation about the cause of the Russian airliner disaster would hurt Egypt’s lifeblood tourism sector.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of foreign tourists, including a few 80,000 Russians and 20,000 Britons, were stranded in Egypt after flights were cancelled over security fears.
“Initial observations…do not allow for identifying the origin of the in-flight break-up” of the aircraft 23 minutes and 14 seconds after it departed from Sharm, Ayman el-Mokkadem said.
The British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) said in a statement that “the safety of the aircraft was not put a risk” and described the incident as “separate from the current and ongoing security situation in Sharm el-Sheikh”.
Yaalon said he “would be surprised” if a planted explosive device did not cause the crash.
Islamic State extremists have claimed they downed the plane as retaliation for Moscow’s air strikes against ISIS in Syria.
The Egyptian military is now providing additional security measures for the evacuation at the country’s airports, Dvorkovich added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered all of his country’s scheduled flights to Egypt be suspended amid rising speculation that terrorist attacks were possibly behind the Russian plane crash.
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U.S. officials are now saying they are “99.99% sure” the plane was brought down by a bomb, with many believing that ISIS got an airport employee at Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh airport to plant the bomb inside the plane for them shortly before takeoff.
