Russian Airliner with 224 People on board Crashes in Sinai, Egypt.

METROJET AIRCRAFT

SINAI PENINSULA

The Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation reports that a Russian aircraft, flight no. KGL9268, carrying more than 220 people crashed today, Saturday, October 31. 2015 in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt about 20 minutes from takeoff at a Red Sea resort highly patronized by Russian tourists.

The chairman of the Egyptian government company that runs the country’s civilian airports said it had been confirmed that all passengers and crew on the plane were Russians.

The spokesman of the Egyptian government stated that though it yet not possible to know whether there are any survivors on board the plane which had 217 passengers and seven crew members the government had sent 50 ambulances and relevant security and emergency services the site of the crash to render medical and other remedial care needed.

Egyptian government official sources said the country’s military search and rescue teams had discovered the wreckage of the passenger jet in the Hassana area south of the city of el-Arish which is in an area in northern Sinai where Egyptian armed forces are battling a rising insurgency by Islamic militants led by a local group loyal to the extremist Islamic State group.

However, the militants in northern Sinai are not known to have ever shot down any commercial airliners or fighter-jets though it has been alleged that they have acquired Russian shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft missiles but this weapons are not effective against high flying aircraft.

The plane involved in today’s crash is believed to be an Airbus model and took off at about 6 a.m. for St. Petersburg in Russia and could not be seen on the radar screens 23 minutes after it take off. The authorities believe the time lapse between takeoff and loss of contact with the aircraft point to a likelihood that the plane was cruising at an altitude of some 30,000 feet before it went down.

The Egyptian authorities first released information that the plane had briefly lost contact but was now safely in Turkish airspace. They later confirmed that the plane has crashed and that the pilot before he lost contact reported that the aircraft was having technical problems. The pilot had also said that he intended to try landing at the nearest airport. The aircraft would eventually crash near the el-Arish airport. There is still no confirmation of the technical problems that would have led to the crash; this would be possible only after proper investigations including the recovery and analysis of the plane’s red boxes.

The crash may have an effect on Egypt’s tourism business being that several million Russian tourists who make up nearly a third of all visitors visit Egypt yearly touring predominantly the Red Sea resorts in Sinai and mainland Egypt.

We pray for the people involved in the crash and their loved ones they left behind.