Russian plane carrying 224 crashes in Egypt's Sinai

Relatives react at Pulkovo international airport outside Saint Petersburg after a Russian plane with 224 people on board crashed in a mountainous part of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on October 31, 2015. AFP PHOTO | OLGA MALTSEVA 

In Summary

• State television reported that Prime Minister Ismail Sharif was headed to the accident scene.
• A senior Egyptian air traffic control official said the pilot told him in their last communication that he was having trouble with the radio system.

By AFP
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CAIRO

A Russian charter plane carrying 224 people crashed in a mountainous part of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula Saturday, killing all on board, Egyptian security and medical officials said.

The plane with 214 Russian and three Ukranian passengers, and seven crew, had taken off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in the south Sinai bound for Saint Petersburg. It lost contact with air traffic control 23 minutes later.

Egyptian security and medical officials said there were no survivors, and that the bodies of the passengers and debris were spread out over an area of five square kilometres (two square miles).

The Russian embassy in Cairo said: "Unfortunately, all passengers of Kogalymavia flight 9268 Sharm el-Sheikh-Saint Petersburg have died. We issue condolences to family and friends."

The Egyptian government said 15 bodies had been recovered and transferred to a morgue so far.

MOSCOW

The wreckage was found roughly 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the North Sinai town of El-Arish, Egyptian officials said.

There was no official word on the cause of the crash.

State television reported that Prime Minister Ismail Sharif was headed to the accident scene.

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Moscow's emergency ministry to dispatch rescue teams to Egypt.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his French counterpart Francois Hollande said they had sent their condolences to Moscow.

The Russian emergency ministry published a list of names of the passengers, ranging in age from a 10-month-old girl to a 77-year-old woman.

A senior Egyptian aviation official said the plane was a charter flight operated by a Russian firm, and was flying at an altitude of 30,000 feet when communication was lost.

At Saint Petersburg's Pulkovo airport, anxious family members awaited news of their loved ones.

"I am meeting my parents," said 25-year-old woman, Ella Smirnova, seemingly in shock. "I spoke to them last on the phone when they were already on the plane, and then I heard the news."

"I will keep hoping until the end that they are alive, but perhaps I will never see them again," she said.

COMMUNICATION LOST

A senior Egyptian air traffic control official said the pilot told him in their last communication that he was having trouble with the radio system.

Russian aviation official Sergei Izvolsky told Interfax news agency that the plane operated by Russian carrier Kogalymavia had departed Sharm el-Sheikh at 5:51 am (0351 GMT).

He said the Airbus 321 did not make contact as expected with air traffic controllers in Cyprus.

"Communication was lost today with the Airbus 321 of Kogalymavia which was carrying out flight 9268 from Sharm el-Sheikh to Saint Petersburg," Izvolsky told Russian television networks.

"The plane departed Sharm el-Sheikh with 217 passengers and seven crew members. At 7:14 Moscow time the crew was scheduled to make contact with... Larnaca (Cyprus). However, this did not happen and the plane disappeared from the radar screens."

The flight was scheduled to land at Saint Petersburg at 0912 GMT, he said.

Kogalymavia, which operates under the name Metrojet, says on its website it has two A320 planes and seven A321s, and that it transported 779,626 passengers in the first nine months of 2015, according to the Russian aviation agency Rosaviatsia.