Russian plane crash: ‘Heat flash’ in satellite imagery points to explosion on

“We exclude technical problems and reject human error”, airline official Alexander Smirnov said.

Speaking at a Washington defense conference, Clapper said it was “unlikely” that the Islamic State group had the capacity to carry out such an attack, but added: “I wouldn’t rule it out”. “And terrorism has not been ruled out”.

Earlier, Smirnov said the “only possible explanation” for the crash was a “purely mechanical external impact”.

What can investigators learn from them?

The airline’s deputy director, Viktor Yung, said the crew appeared to have been disabled before the crash as well.

No distress calls were received from the cockpit.

Egypt’s state-run newspaper Ahram quoted an official with Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee as saying the disintegration happened in the air and fragments are strewn over a large area.

Militants from the Islamic State-linked Sinai Province have claimed responsibility, but the group has not provided further evidence and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi has dismissed the claim as “propaganda”.

The Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry released a photo of the boxes on Monday after officials from Egypt and Russian Federation examined them.

The US, Germany, and Britain all have warned against flying over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, a region that has become a home for extremists. “These are the two most probable hypotheses”.

Sabotage would require familiarity with the electrical or fuel systems of the A321-200, but hiding a bomb would need less knowledge, he added.

The plane’s flight recorders have been found and sent for analysis. Ireland registered Airbus that came down in Sinai, Egypt, had been tested and passed earlier this year. “Just as you are killing others, you too will be killed, God willing”. An isolated blast in the luggage compartment probably would not have been enough to destroy the aircraft, but a bomb in the pressurised passenger cabin could well have caused the shockwave that broke up the fuselage. Parts of the plane are disassembled so that inspectors can see inside.

“There is a very aggressive ISIL chapter in the Sinai”, he said.

On Sunday, aviation experts and the search teams were combing an area of 16 square kilometres to find bodies and pieces of the jet.

Representatives from at least five countries have joined the investigation of the Airbus jetliner crash.

Putin has also ordered Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to open an investigation, the Kremlin said.

“The crew was engaged in routine communications with air traffic controllers”, the news agency said, attributing the details to a source in Cairo.

The first bodies recovered from the wreckage arrived on board a Russian government plane at St Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport, where grieving Russians left piles of flowers.