Russian Federation Suspends All Flights To Egypt

Experts from France’s BEA accident investigation agency are in Egypt investigating the crash as the Metrojet Airbus A321-200 was made in France.

A few evacuation flights from Sharm el-Sheikh to Britain were due to resume on Friday, with airlines laying on extra planes to get stranded travellers home, but passengers would only be allowed to fly with hand luggage due to a British government request.

Planes flying out of the resort are limiting what passengers can carry on board amid concern a bomb in luggage could have slipped onto the Russian plane.

Referring to media reports citing Western intelligence sources pointing to the possibility that the plane was brought down by a bomb, Muqaddam said no evidence related to those claims had been provided to his team.

Russia suspended all passenger-plane flights to Egypt Friday because of the crash, although the Kremlin has been adamant that this action wasn’t an indication the Russian government suspected a terrorist attack, the Guardian reported.

But the head of Russian intelligence, Alexander Bortnikov, has now recommended a suspension of all flights to Egypt “until we determine the real reasons of what happened”, and President Vladimir Putin agreed.

Airline Monarch also stated its flights for British tourists were still making their way to Sharm El Sheikh as planned.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria group has claimed responsibility for the disaster, in which the St Petersburg-bound jet last weekend crashed minutes after taking off, killing all 224, mainly Russian tourists, on board.

Egypt, whose economy heavily depends on tourism, has loudly denied ISIS involvement in the crash, and has railed against nations that have suspended flights to Sinai.

“We’ll do it in a way that’s convenient and as quick as possible”, he said.

However, several aircraft were forced to turn back or land at Cyprus as Sharm el-Sheikh does not have the capacity to handle so many flights at once.

“The committee urges the sources of such reports to provide it with all information that could help us in undertaking our mission”, he said.

Both Egypt and Russian Federation had insisted it was too early to draw conclusions.

A few USA and British officials have speculated that militants may have planted a bomb in the plane’s cargo hold.