Egypt president rubbishes IS group air disaster claims as ‘propaganda’

Several American media outlets reported Monday citing defence sources that a USA infrared satellite had detected a heat flash over Sinai at the time of the incident, which could indicate a bomb or a device like a fuel tank may have exploded.

“We rule out a technical fault of the plane or a pilot error”, Metrojet deputy general director Alexander Smirnov said. In a statement on Twitter, the militants said they brought the plane down in response to Russian airstrikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land.

The cause of Saturday’s plane crash, the deadliest in Russian history, is still a mystery.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi called that claim “propaganda” aimed at damaging the country’s image, and he insisted the security situation in the Sinai Peninsula is under “full control”.

An explosion of a bomb aboard the plane was mentioned as another possible cause of the crash.

But there is no suggestion that a surface-to-air missile brought down the aircraft.

More than 100 body parts and 140 bodies were flown to St. Petersburg on three government planes.

“The only explanation is a few kind of external action”, senior Kogalymavia executive Alexander Smirnov told a news conference in Moscow, without elaborating.

In Egypt, the U.S. Embassy has instructed its staff not to travel anywhere in the Sinai Peninsula pending the outcome of the investigation into the crash as a “precautionary measure”.

Russian officials have said the plane, carrying holidaymakers from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg, likely broke up in mid-air but said it was too early to say what caused it to crash.

Russians investigators, who have had plenty of opportunities to examine commercial crashes on their own soil, cautioned the airline against a rush to judgment.

That’s a sign that investigators will soon be closer to figuring out what happened, said Alan Diehl, a former accident investigator for the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Air Force.

An Egyptian militant group affiliated with Daesh Takfiri terrorists claimed on Saturday that it had downed the plane in retaliation for Moscow’s anti-Daesh military campaign in Syria.

In his first public appearance since the crash, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on television on 2 November to offer his condolences to those touched by the disaster.

Mourners have been coming to St. Petersburg’s airport since Saturday with flowers, pictures of the victims, stuffed animals and paper planes.