“The destruction happened in the air, and fragments were scattered over a large area of around 20 square kilometers,” said Viktor Sorochenko, director of the Intergovernmental Aviation Committee. However, he warned against reading anything into this information. “It’s too early to talk about conclusions,” he said on Russian television from Cairo.
The Moscow-based committee represents governments of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which groups Russia and other former Soviet republics.
Those on board the doomed flight included 214 Russians, at least three Ukrainians and one Belarusian, most returning from the Red Sea, popular with Russians seeking winter sun.
The Russian flag was flying at half-mast over the country’s embassy in Cairo on Sunday morning. President Vladimir Putin has declared a day of national mourning in Russia.
A militant group affiliated to Islamic State in Egypt said in a statement that it brought down the plane “in response to Russian airstrikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land”, but Sokolov told Interfax news agency the claim “can’t be considered accurate”.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said it could take months to establish the truth behind the crash though his country was cooperating with Russia to aid investigations.
“This is a complicated matter and requires advanced technologies and broad investigations that could take months,” Sisi said in a televised speech on Sunday.
The wreckage was found in a desolate area of stony ground.
United Arab Emirates airlines, Emirates, Air Arabia and flydubai have said they are re-routing flights to avoid Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, where a Russian aircraft carrying 224 passengers crashed yesterday.
The airlines said they were closely monitoring the area and the re-routing was a security precaution, according to separate emailed statements to Reuters.
Re-routing usually means longer flying distances, which add to fuel costs.
Budget carrier easyJet said it was taking advice from all relevant authorities and was continuing to “actively review” the situation.
British Airways said in a statement that it did not discuss flight routes, “however we would never fly a route unless it was safe to do so”.
EasyJet said that it, like other British airlines, did not overfly central and northern Sinai on the advice of Britain’s Department of Transport.
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