An Egyptian militant group affiliated with Islamic State said on Saturday it brought down the aircraft in response to Russian air strikes in Syria.
Advertisement
Senior Kogalymavia executive Alexander Smirnov said Monday that “no technical failures” could account for why the Airbus 321 would have broken up in mid-air.
Mr Cameron said security officials were “looking very carefully” at whether there was any ongoing safety risk posed by the incident.
“There is much work to be done to study the debris of the aircraft and the data of the flight recorders”, the head of the Russian aviation authority, Aleksand Neradko, told Rossiya 24 news channel.
Isis has issued a statement claiming responsibility for the crash, describing it as an attack on “Russian crusaders”.
Experts working at the scene of the Metrojet Airbus A321-20 crash found elements “that are not components of the crashed A321 airliner”, Russian state-run news agency TASS reported today, quoting “informed sources in Cairo”.
Other U.S. officials also said it was too early to link the crash to Islamic State terrorism.
The flight recorders will provide key information, including the plane’s airspeed and whether it was on autopilot.
Rahmi said the investigating team, led by Egypt and aided by experts from Russian Federation, Airbus and Ireland, where the plane is registered, had returned to the crash site on Tuesday morning.
Those on board the flight included 214 Russians, at least three Ukrainians and one Belarusian, most returning from the Red Sea, popular with Russians seeking winter Sunday.
One of the members of the Egyptian committee examining the black box of the crashed aircraft told Reuters that the plane showed no indication of being stuck from outside, and the pilot did not try to contact anyone before the plane vanished from the radar.
On Monday, Kogalymavia, which operates flights under the name Metrojet, said the crash of the plane was due to “external” factors.
Though most of the day that followed was people spurning this suggestion, the US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper isn’t dismissing the idea so quickly. The data is still being analyzed in an effort to determine what caused the flash, CBS News reports.
Advertisement
Alex Smirnov of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said 140 bodies and more than 100 body parts were taken to St Petersburg on Monday and Tuesday and that a third plane was set to bring more remains later on Tuesday.
