Russian plane crashes in Egypt, killing all 224 onboard

Seventeen children were among the passengers on the plane that crashed in Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula

CAIRO: A Russian plane with 224 people on board crashed in a mountainous part of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, with medics at the site reporting casualties, officials said.

Ambulances reached the site and began evacuating "casualties," officials and state media reported, without elaborating on their condition.

According to the Egyptian government, 15 bodies have been recovered so far from the plane.

An aviation official had earlier said there were 'many dead' including 17 children.

The plane took off early Saturday from the southern Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh bound for Saint Petersburg in Russia but communication was lost 23 minutes after departure, officials said.



"Military planes have discovered the wreckage of the plane... in a mountainous area, and 45 ambulances have been directed to the site to evacuate dead and wounded," a cabinet statement said.

Officials and the state MENA news agency later said the "casualties" were being transferred to nearby hospitals.

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. PHOTO: AFP

 

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

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

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. PHOTO: AFP

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

A senior Egyptian aviation official said the plane was a charter flight operated by a Russian company carrying 217 passengers and seven crew members.

The official said the plane was flying at an altitude of 30,000 feet when communication was lost.



Sergei Lzvolsky, an official with the Russian aviation agency Rosaviatsia told Interfax news agency that the Kogalymavia Russian airline had departed Sharm el-Sheikh at 5:51 am local time (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," Lzvolsky later told Russian television networks.

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

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

The contents of the plane's last communication with ground crews were not immediately disclosed.

PHOTO: GUARDIAN

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

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

Day of mourning

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared Nov. 1 a national day of mourning following the crash of a Russian airliner in Egypt, the Kremlin press service said on Saturday.

Russia opens criminal case

Russia's top Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case against airline Kogalymavia after one of its planes with 224 people aboard crashed in Egypt on Saturday, Russian news agencies said, quoting the committee's spokesperson.

RIA news agency reported that the Investigative Committee's case had been brought under an article regulating "violation of rules of flights and preparations for them".

Interfax reported committee spokesman Vladimir Markin as saying that the case had been brought under Article 263 of the Criminal Code: "Violation of the safety rules for movement and exploitation of air, sea or internal water transport".

Markin also said that a group of investigators and crime experts had been formed and would head to Egypt.

"They will operate in agreement with the competent organs and together with the representatives of the Republic of Egypt in accordance with the norms of national and international law," Markin said, according to Interfax.

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. PHOTO: AFP

The last major commercial airliner crash in Egypt happened in 2004, when a Flash Airlines Boeing 737 plunged into the Red Sea after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh.

The 148 people aboard that flight, most of whom were French, were killed.

Millions of tourists, many of them Russian, visit the resort town, one of Egypt's major draws for tourists looking for pristine beaches and scuba diving.



The resort, and others dotting the southern Sinai Red Sea coast, are heavily secured by the military and police as an Islamist militant insurgency rages in the north of the restive peninsula, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Militants in the north who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the army ousted president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.