Bomb behind Russian plane crash, US & UK suspect

Possible bombing would be first time IS, which controls vast parts of Syria & Iraq, has bombed a passenger plane. 20,000 UK nationals now stuck in Egyptian Red Sea resort.

AIR SAFETY

US, UK say bomb may have downed Russian jet in Egypt

AFP News Agency

05/11/2015

The United States and Britain said Wednesday a bomb may have brought down a Russian airliner (an Airbus A-321) which crashed in Egypt, as the Islamic State group insisted it caused the disaster.

Britain and Ireland suspended flights to and from the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where the plane took off on Saturday bound for Saint Petersburg before crashing minutes later, killing all 224 people on board.

Flight KGL9268 was flying at altitude of 30,000 feet (9,144 metres) when it lost contact with authorities, 23 minutes after takeoff.

INVESTIGATION

A US military satellite picked up a heat flash at the time of the crash that could point to a catastrophic event during the flight, US media reported.

Experts say the fact that debris and bodies were strewn over a wide area points indicated the aircraft disintegrated in mid-air, meaning the crash was likely caused by either a technical fault or a bomb on board.

Russian airline Kogalymavia, which operated the plane, has ruled out a technical fault or human error, drawing fire from the head of Russia's aviation authority for a "premature" assessment.

Egyptian officials said investigators probing the plane's black boxes had extracted the data from one of them for analysis, but added the other had been damaged and required a lot of work.

ISLAMIC STATE (IS) CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY

The Islamic State (IS) group (ISIL in the US) insisted again on Wednesday that they were responsible and promised to reveal how.

If confirmed, it would be the first time IS, which controls vast parts of Syria and Iraq, has bombed a passenger plane.

The IS affiliate in Egypt is waging a bloody insurgency in the north of the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers.

On Wednesday, IS claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing on a police social club, which killed four policemen.

IS has deployed shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles in the past, but they are not known to possess weapons that could bring down an airliner at high altitude.

THREAT TO EGYPTIAN TOURISM SECTOR

Egypt has played down the possibility of a bomb attack and stressed the need to wait for the results of an international investigation, keen to preserve the country's economically vital tourism sector.

An estimated 20,000 UK nationals are currently stuck in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The UK government will help them leave.

British aviation experts have been dispatched to the resort to assess security.

IN RUSSIA

In Russia, authorities are expected to bury the first victim of the crash on Thursday -- the country's deadliest air disaster.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the crash as a "huge tragedy".

Relatives of the victims have begun identifying the bodies after two planes delivered the remains of many to the Russian city of Saint Petersburg.

In the city centre, about 300 people attended a vigil for the dead on Wednesday.

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