Russian Federation starts bringing home remains of plane crash victims from Egypt’s Sinai

Within hours of the crash, the Egyptian affiliate of IS, which has a stronghold in the northern Sinai, claimed it had downed the jet in retaliation for Russian air strikes targeting its jihadists in Syria.

US officials said it was “unlikely” that a terrorist group such as ISIS had shot down the plane but that they would not rule out the possibility.

MAXIM GRIGORYEV/AFP/Getty Images Russian officials visit the crash site of a Russian passenger plane that went down in Egypt, killing all 224 people on board Saturday.

The Russian aircraft that crashed in Egypt on Saturday, October 31, was a result of external factors and not technical issues in the aircraft, according to the Russian airline. In this photo made available Monday, November 2, 2015, and provided by Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, Egyptian Military on cars approach a plane’s tail at the wreckage of a passeng…

Russia’s transport minister dismissed the claim and said it “can’t be considered accurate”.

The company that flew the jet, Kogalymavia, on Monday ruled out pilot error or mechanical failure as causes of the crash and blamed a “mechanical impact on the aircraft”.

“The only possible explanation could be an external impact on the airplane”, said Alexander Smirnov, Metrojet’s deputy director.

An Egyptian ground service official who carried out a preflight inspection of the plane said the aircraft appeared to be in good shape.

The USA, Germany, and Britain all have warned against flying over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, a region that has become a home for extremists.

A plane carrying the remains of additional victims of the plane crash is expected in St. Petersburg.

The government plane brought 140 bodies to St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport, touching down in the dark. Interfax reported, citing an unnamed source, that “the recordings show sounds uncharacteristic of a standard flight precede the moment of the airliner’s disappearance”.

This is the first plane that brought the bodies of the victims of the air crash to Russian Federation.

“We don’t have any direct evidence of any terrorist involvement yet”, he said.

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.