Most of the 224 people onboard were Russian tourists.
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The Egyptian military also took control of registering stranded Russian passengers, according to Arkady Dvorkovich, the Russian deputy prime minister who is charge of the efforts to repatriate Russian from Egypt. He said that there were a few 79,000 Russians who needed transportation home from there, from Cairo, and from the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.
Russia, Turkey and several European countries have joined the United Kingdom in suspending flights from Sharm el Sheikh, following concerns over lax security at the city’s main airport.
Ben Khosravi, 27, who was on an easyJet flight that landed at Luton airport Friday, said security at Sharm el-Sheikh airport was “horrendous”.
Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee said on Saturday that its experts were continuing their work at the crash site together with representatives of Egypt, France, Germany and Ireland. “As of now, we can speak only about certain noises recorded by the cockpit voice recorder”.
He says “we expected that the information available would be communicated to us instead of being broadcast” in the media.
People purporting to represent Islamic State claimed the downing of the jet was retaliation for Russia’s bombing the extremist group in Syria.
Schiff, who was briefed by intelligence officials on Saturday, raised the possibility that someone working at the airport may have helped the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, place a bomb on the plane.
A USA government source said on Monday that neither Russian Federation nor Egypt has accepted an offer from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to assist them in investigating the crash.
Thousands of tourists waited in slow-moving security lines at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport on Saturday as they tried to board charter flights home.
The pilot of the Thomson flight from London to Egypt took evasive action after spotting the missile coming towards the plane as it flew to the Red Sea resort, the Daily Mail reported.
French air accident investigators cited by AFP said the flight data recorder had shown that “everything was normal during the flight, absolutely normal, and suddenly there was nothing”.
The Foreign Office said it will continue to raise concerns about the devices.
Tourists sunbathe in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on November 7, 2015.
There has been little mention of the incident on Egyptian state television. Hammond said those trying to get home on unscheduled flights face delays of two to three days at most.
He said nothing about the theory that a terrorist bomb brought down the plane, an explanation that has been endorsed by Britain and that President Obama has said he is taking “very seriously”.
The two Western countries have been analyzing the specific language in the chatter to determine to what extent the operatives were talking about the type of bomb and detonator used, and whether that language was a true representation of what happened, one official told CNN.
Flights from Britain to the resort remain suspended.
Johnson said authorities are evaluating whether additional measures were necessary.
But potential inconsistencies in airport security here and elsewhere in Egypt have never been hard to detect.
A few US and British officials have speculated that militants may have planted a bomb in the plane’s cargo hold.
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The British Department for Transport said its investigation concluded it was not a “targeted attack” and likely connected to routine Egyptian military exercises in the area at the time.
