UK hopes to return all Brits from Sharm within 10 days

He did not specify whether “now” referred to days, or to hours.

“All scenarios are being considered”, Ayman el-Muqadem said at a news conference in Cairo.

The move adds to mounting global concern about flying into and out of Egypt following the crash of Metrojet Flight 9268 on Saturday, which killed all 224 people aboard.

“A noise was heard in the last second of the recording by the cockpit voice recorder”, and “a spectral analysis will be done to determine the origin of this noise”, he said. But it is the strongest indication yet that Moscow now believes a bomb may well have destroyed flight 9268.

US President Barack Obama has said that Washington was “seriously” considering the possibility of a bomb aboard the plane, while British PM David Cameron told reporters this week it was “more likely than not that… a terrorist bomb” caused the crash.

A “missile” that came within 1,000ft of a plane carrying British tourists to Sharm el-Sheikh was “probably a flare”, investigators found.

After that incident, “The British government investigated and concluded the incident had been linked to routine activity by the Egyptian military was not a ‘targeted attack, ‘ ” the BBC reports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has stopped all Russian airline flights to Egypt. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said Putin also ordered the safe return of Russians in Egypt and cooperation with Egyptian authorities on air-traffic security, Russia Today, the state-run broadcaster, reported.

On Wednesday, Cameron suspended flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh for 24 hours and flew a team of British aviation experts to the city’s airport to inspect its security measures. Islamic State jihadists asserted responsibility for the crash. Britons are a major part of Egypt’s vital tourist industry.

Putin’s decision was a response to the crash of an Airbus A321 operated by a Russian carrier on Saturday over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

The committee consists of 49 members, 29 from Egypt, seven from Russian Federation, six from France and two from Germany besides other airline consultants.

The source said the flight data recorder showed that “everything was normal during the flight, absolutely normal, and suddenly there was nothing”. “Upon landing into Sharm el-Sheikh, an initial assessment was conducted and the event was immediately reported to the UK DfT in line with established protocol”.