Thousands of Russians fly home from Egypt

The British government and anonymous USA officials said there was speculation the plane was downed by a bomb, which followed with the suspension of flights in and out of Sharm el-Sheikh airport.

It could also mark a new strategy by the hardline Islamic State group which holds large parts of Syria and Iraq.

“Today is the busiest day in this sense”, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said Sunday.

The Associated Press reported Sunday that Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh global Airport, the flight’s origin, had security problems, including lax searches and a frequently malfunctioning baggage scanning device. The group remains active across Sinai, and was credited with bombing the Russian plane.

Israel deems Egypt a key security partner and has lobbied for US support of Cairo’s counter-insurgency efforts in Sinai.

Most of the victims were from St. Petersburg or other areas of northwest Russian Federation.

ISIS’ affiliate in Egypt says it brought down Metrojet Flight 9268.

In Russian Federation, more than a thousand mourners packed into the landmark St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg for a memorial service for the victims. That’s prompted questions about the claim among a few observers, considering ISIS’ tendency to often publicize its acts for propaganda value. Both countries were upset by the Western bomb assessments published last week, which spurred a wave of foreign flight cancellations to Sinai’s Red Sea resorts.

Cars were being stopped half-a-mile (1km) from the terminal and checked for any explosive traces, he said, and planes on the runway were being guarded around the clock by a cordon of Egyptian military and security personnel.

The TV station France 2 reported Friday that European investigators who analyzed the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from Flight 9268 are saying the crash is not an accident.

“A spectral analysis will be carried out by specialised labs in order to identify the nature of this noise”, he said.

But Shoukry said Egyptian investigators had received no such information.

The crash might have been caused by a lithium battery or a mechanical issue, Muqaddam said, noting that the investigation was being hampered by bad weather.

Lead investigator Ayman el-Muqadem said they were looking at “all possible scenarios” as to the cause but confirmed the Airbus 321 was still gaining altitude as it disintegrated 23 minutes after take-off, killing all 224 people on board the Metrojet flight.

Russia, which initially played down suggestions that the crash was caused by terrorists, is using its own cargo planes, while the United Kingdom is using Egypt Air cargo planes, according to Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry.

Russia has returned 11,000 of its tourists from Egypt in the last 24 hours, RIA news agency said on Sunday, a fraction of the 80,000 Russians who were stranded by the Kremlin’s decision on Friday to halt all flights to Egypt. It does not fly to Sharm el-Sheikh, the departure airport for the doomed Russian airliner.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has said British officials sent a security team to evaluate the airport 10 months ago, in cooperation with Egyptian officials, and were satisfied with the results.