A Russian airliner full of tourists heading home from a Red Sea resort crashed into Egypt’s desolate Sinai mountains early Saturday — killing all 224 people aboard, including 17 children.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the crash, a claim quickly discredited by officials in Russia. But the mystery deepened later Saturday, when Egyptian officials revealed that the plane plummeted shortly after takeoff without the pilot issuing a distress signal.
The charter flight by Metrojet, a subsidiary of Russian airline Kogalymavia, had taken off from Sharm El-Sheikh en route to St. Petersburg and went down 23 minutes later from about 30,000 feet.
Investigators picking through the Airbus A321’s wreckage described a devastating scene.
“A lot of dead on the ground, and many who died while strapped to their seats,” an Egyptian security officer said. Charred bodies were scattered over three square miles of rocky terrain.
“We are hearing a lot of telephones ringing, most likely belonging to the victims, and security forces are collecting them and putting them into a bag,” the officer said.
Both of the black boxes were retrieved and were being analyzed.
Pilot Valery Nemov told air-traffic controllers of technical problems and was trying to make an emergency landing at El-Arish, according to an official with Egypt’s Aviation Incidents Committee.
But Mohamed Hossam Kemal, Egypt’s civil aviation minister, said communications between the crew and air-traffic control were routine and that nothing abnormal occurred before the crash, Reuters reported.
“The plane did not request a change of route,” he said.
The 18-year-old jet plunged at almost 6,000 feet per minute, radar data showed, and split in two.
The same plane had suffered damage 14 years ago when its rear section struck the runway as it landed at Cairo International Airport in Egypt, the Sunday Times of London reported.
A local ISIS group claimed it downed the jet “in response to Russian airstrikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land.”
A statement on an Islamic State Web site said “soldiers of the caliphate were able to bring down a Russian plane above Sinai Province with at least 220 Russian crusaders aboard.”
But that claim “can’t be considered accurate,” insisted Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov.
Military experts cast further doubt, noting that the surface-to-air missiles that local ISIS fighters are thought to possess can’t reach altitudes above 10,000 feet.
Nonetheless, two major European airlines, Lufthansa and Air France, announced they would reroute flights to avoid the area in the wake of the terrorist claim.
The crash victims ranged in age from 10 months to 77 years. Their relatives and friends gathered at Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg, the plane’s jet’s destination.
“I will keep hoping until the end that they are alive,” Ella Smirnova, 25, said of her missing parents.
With Post Wires