Russian plane crashes in Egypt

A plane carrying 224 people heading for St. Petersburg, Russian Federation from a resort town in Egypt crashed several hours ago, leaving everyone on board dead in an bad tragedy.

Egyptian security sources have said initial investigations suggest the MetroJet Airbus A321 crashed on Saturday morning due to a “technical fault”.

The plane’s wreckage was found in the al-Hassanah area in the peninsula’s rugged central mountains.

However, on the other hand, the Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the crash of a Russian plane on Saturday in Egypt’s Sinai, which killed over 200 people on board, in a statement posted online.

The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin has ordered dispatch of rescue teams to Egypt. Russia’s Emergency Ministry published a list of names of the passengers, ranging in age from a 10-month-old girl to a 77-year-old woman.

Russian Transportation Minister Maxim Sokolov rejected claims the plane had been shot down, the state run TASS news agency reported.

The flight is believed to have been mostly carrying Russian tourists.

Reuters reported Egypt confirmed the news and that an Egyptian crisis committee has been formed to help handle the crash.

The plane reportedly had broken into two parts indicating that the pilot might have attempted to make a controlled emergency landing.

Military experts have told AFP that IS militants in Sinai do not have weapons capable of hitting an aircraft at 30,000 feet (9,000 metres), the altitude of the airliner when it lost contact.

A tracking service for flights known as Flight Radar 24, said the aircraft at been descending at a rate of 6,000 per minute at the time it went off the radar. The Prime Minister is meeting with ministers and security officials regarding the crash.

Turkish government spokesmen said they had no information about the missing Russian plane ever entering Turkish airspace.

Germany’s Lufthansa and Air France said they would halt flights over Sinai until the reasons behind the crash became clear.