Elements not related to Airbus A321 found on crash site

“The only explicable cause can be a mechanical impact on the aircraft”, Smirnov said, adding “there is no possible combination of system failures that could lead to the aircraft breaking-up in midair”.

“It is completely premature to speak about the reasons of this, as there are not grounds”.

Alexander Neradko, head of Russia’s aviation authority, criticised the airline’s comments, saying they were “premature and not based on any real facts”.

Metrojet firmly denied that the crash could have been caused by either equipment failure or crew error.

CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest suggested that the Kogalymavia official could have meant something abnormal and out of the ordinary had occurred. The family of Sergei Trykhachyov, the co-pilot on Flight KGL9268, said the last monthly wage he received was for July.

Egyptian officials have offered conflicting accounts on whether or not the plane issued any distress calls. He added “It suddenly disappeared from the radar”. “This could be a long process and we can’t talk about the results as we go along, ” he said.

“At this point, a plane is on autopilot”.

Smirnov says the plane dropped 300km/h in speed and 1.5km in altitude one minute before it crashed.

“It’s disturbing to me”.

“That’s a very complex fix and it requires very special expertise”, said Cox, a former airline pilot and accident investigator. On the outskirts of town, tearful families of the victims were leaving the premises of the crematorium where the identification procedures are taking place.

The potential findings of the investigation into the crash have implications for both Cairo and Moscow. It could have been a center fuel tank that might have exploded.

Cox said monthly maintenance checks typically can’t spot a return of damage from a tail strike because the cracks are inside the plane in an area that’s not normally accessible during visual inspections. Not enough time had passed for major cracks to develop to a critical size since then, he said.

But a Kogalymavia said such reports were irresponsible and that there was no record of the pilot or crew making any complaints.

Smirnov, the Metrojet official, said that he had personally flown the plane in recent months and that it was “pristine”.

Cockpit recordings reveal “sounds uncharacteristic of routine flight”, according to a report from the Interfax news agency. The aircraft had clocked around 56,000 flight hours over the course of almost 21,000 flights, the plane maker said.

The Airbus A321 was owned by the Irish firm Willmington Trust SP Services (Dublin) Ltd and leased to Metrojet. If the plane’s engines become a focus of the investigation, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board will likely dispatch a team to Egypt as well, a U.S official with knowledge of the investigation said. There were seven crewmembers on Flight 9268.

Two hundred-seventeen passengers were aboard the flight – 209 Russians, four Ukrainians and one from Belarus. Where the three other passengers were from was not disclosed.

Egyptian medics have retrieved 175 bodies from the scene, a medical source in Sinai told CNN on Monday.

Aviation expert David Gleave says it is not “necessarily credible” for a group such as the Isis affiliate, which has claimed credit for downing the aircraft, to have launched a missile. He did not identify the victims but said they were from the St. Petersburg suburbs and a neighboring region.

At the crash site in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, emergency workers and aviation experts from Russian Federation and Egypt swept across the barren terrain Monday, searching for more victims and examining the debris for clues as to the cause of Saturday’s crash.

Another plane bringing more bodies is expected to depart Egypt later Monday.

President Vladimir Putin described the crash, Russia’s worst air disaster, as a “huge tragedy”.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Sunday urged the public not to jump to conclusions. Airbus engineers were also in Egypt working on the investigation, it said. Putin has also ordered Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to open an investigation into the crash, the Kremlin said.

Investigators from France and Germany, representing Airbus, and from Ireland, where the plane was registered, were to join investigators in Egypt.

But black boxes aren’t ideal. The sounds were recorded moments before the crash. Russia’s aviation authority has said the devices, which could solve the mystery of what happened to the doomed jet, are in good condition.

Egypt’s Ministry of Civil Aviation later released a photo of one of the boxes.

It crashed in the North Sinai peninsula, killing all 224 on board, including 17 children.

Mahjoob, the airport official, said there was no evidence of a terrorist attack. After the crash, Egyptian officials said the two black boxes had been found and were being transported to Cairo for analysis.

Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said in televised remarks that Russian experts already had conducted a preliminary inspection of the recorders and had seen information from Egypt’s flight control radars, but he wouldn’t give further details. But aviation and military experts believe the group does not have missiles that could have reached the plane’s altitude of 9,100 meters.