Egypt not allowing extra United Kingdom repatriation flights

“We don’t know what happened exactly”.

Black box data from the Russian plane that crashed in Egypt last week indicates it was hit by a bomb, sources said, before an Egypt-led probe into the disaster was set to release its first findings Saturday.

Egypt’s Minister of Civil Aviation Hossam Kamal said the operation to bring large numbers of British holidaymakers from their hotels to the airport and then put them on flights without their luggage was “a huge burden on the airport because its capacity does not allow for that”. The Russians and Egyptians called that premature, saying the investigation had not concluded.

Muqaddam did not describe the noise investigators picked up from the cockpit voice recorder when the flight disintegrated midair while traveling at 281 knots (323 mph) at about 30,000 feet and climbing.

The head of the Egyptian team investigating the fatal crash told a news conference in Cairo that analysis of the noise is under way to identify its nature.

Earlier, Egypt’s foreign minister complained that Western governments had not sufficiently helped Egypt in its war on terrorism and had not shared relevant intelligence with Cairo.

If a bomb knocked the Airbus A321 out of the sky, that would challenge Egypt’s assertions that it had brought under control militants who have carried out high-profile attacks on senior government officials and Western targets.

The incident came just two months before a Russian passenger plane crashed in the Sinai peninsula.

“It’s this split second, and it’s a millisecond, where you hear an explosion of a few description”, he said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin’sm decision was taken at the recommendation of the Russian security service.

President Vladimir Putin quickly agreed.

Russian Federation had resisted the theory that a bomb brought down the airliner.

He said that the return home of Russian citizens will be “ensured”.

While Russian Federation still underlined that no conclusion had been reached about the cause of the Metrojet crash, it joined Britain in demanding stricter security at Egyptian airports.

A statement from the company said: “Thomson Airways can now confirm that due to a last minute change in Egyptian government restrictions we can only operate two flights from Sharm el Sheikh to the United Kingdom today”. Another three planes from Birmingham and Manchester are at the smaller Paphos airport, diverted there because they were unable to land directly at the Egyptian Red Sea resort.

There are now 80,000 Russians in Egypt – 79,000 of them in the resort areas of Hurgada and Sharm el-Sheikh, Russian tourism chief Oleg Safonov was cited as saying by Russian news agencies.

“Why all of a sudden is everything on hold?” asked one of the stranded British tourists, Carla Dublin.

Denmark on Friday became the latest European country to warn against travelling to Sharm el-Sheikh, following France, Belgium and Britain, while several airlines have banned check-in luggage as a precaution. Obama said it was “certainly possible”. The statement bolstered USA and British suspicions that the plane was brought down by a bomb.

American officials have repeatedly cautioned that the cause of the crash is still under investigation.

One expert told the newspaper the certain cause of the crash was not a technical fault or pilot error but a bomb brought in from outside and planted in the plane.

The Daesh Takfiri terrorist group has released a video claiming responsibility for downing the Russian Metrojet flight.