224 dead as Russian airliner goes down in Egypt

IS-affiliated group claims responsibility; Russia says untrue

CAIRO:

A Russian airliner carrying 224 passengers crashed into a mountainous area of Egypt’s Sinai peninsula on Saturday shortly after losing radar contact near cruising altitude, killing all aboard.

The Airbus A321, operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia under the brand name Metrojet, was flying from the Sinai Red Sea resort of Sharm elSheikh to St Petersburg in Russia when it went down in central Sinai soon after daybreak, the aviation ministry said.

A north Sinai security source said initial examination suggested the crash could have been caused by a technical fault; but it was too early to draw any firm conclusions. The plane, he said, had landed in a ‘vertical fashion’, contributing to the scale of devastation and burning.



“I now see a tragic scene,” an Egyptian security officer at the site told Reuters by telephone. “A lot of dead on the ground and many who died whilst strapped to their seats.  “The plane split into two, a small part on the tail-end that burned and a larger part that crashed into a rockface. We have extracted at least 100 bodies and the rest are still inside,” the officer, who requested anonymity, said.

A militant group affiliated to Islamic State in Egypt, Sinai Province, said in a statement carried by the Aamaq website, which acts as a semi-official news agency for Islamic State, that it had brought down the plane “in response to Russian airstrikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land”.



Russia’s Transport Minister told Interfax news agency the Islamic State claim “can’t be considered accurate.”  Russia launched air raids against opposition groups in Syria including Islamic State on September 30. Security sources said there was no indication the Airbus had been shot down or blown up.



Sinai is the scene of an insurgency by militants close to Islamic State, who have killed hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police and have also attacked Western targets in recent months. Islamic State websites have in the past claimed responsibility for actions that have not been conclusively attributed to them.

Russian television showed footage of anxious relatives and friends waiting for information at St Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport. A middle-aged woman was shown weeping and crying out.  President Vladimir Putin declared a day of national mourning for Sunday. The passengers included 214 Russians and three Ukrainians.

The A321 is a medium-haul jet in service since 1994, with over 1,100 in operation worldwide and a good safety record.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2015.