A Russian airliner carrying 224 passengers and crew crashed in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula on Saturday, the Egyptian prime minister’s office and civil aviation ministry said.
The Airbus A-321, operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia with registration number KGL-9268, was flying from the Sinai coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg in Russia when it went down in a desolate mountainous area of central Sinai soon after daybreak, the aviation ministry said.
Egypt’s air accident chief had said on Saturday that a missing passenger plane on its way to Russia had safely left Egyptian airspace and made contact with Turkish air traffic control.
The sources said the passenger plane was mainly carrying Russian tourists.
2:33 pm (IST): Seventeen children were among the passengers onboard, Russia’s RIA news agency quoted a source in the Russian aviation authority as saying.
2:24 pm (IST): Survivors and bodies of those on board will be flown to Cairo, the security source said.
2:22 pm (IST): Plane went down in a mountainous area in central Sinai and poor weather conditions have made it difficult for rescue crews to get to the scene, the officer said.
2:19 pm (IST): Russian airline that crashed in Sinai completely destroyed, most passengers likely to have died – security officer at the scene.
2:17 pm (IST): The plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet when it vanished from radar screens, the aviation ministry said in a statement.
2:16 pm (IST): Egyptian rescue team locates crashed Russian passenger plane in southern Arish, Sinai – Egyptian aviation authority.
2:06 pm (IST): No indications that Russian airplane that crashed in Sinai was shot down, say Egyptian security sources.
1:56 pm (IST): Egyptian media claim crash site, plane wreckage already discovered: Russia . (Agencies)
Follow our WhatsApp channel