Russian plane crashes; all 224 aboard perish

CAIRO (AP) – A Russian aircraft carrying 224 people crashed Saturday in a remote mountainous region in the Sinai Peninsula about 20 minutes after taking off from a Red Sea resort popular with Russian tourists, Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation said.

Egyptian military and security officials said there were no survivors from among the 217 passengers and seven crew members aboard the aircraft. Most of the bodies recovered so far

from the site of the crash were burned, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

Adel Mahgoub, chairman of the state company that runs Egypt's civilian airports, said all passengers and crew were Russian citizens.

A civil aviation ministry statement said Egyptian military search and rescue teams found the wreckage of the passenger jet in the Hassana area some 70 kilometers south of the city of el-Arish, an area in northern Sinai where Egyptian security forces have for years battled a burgeoning Islamic militant insurgency which is now led by a local affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group.

It said the plane, believed to be an Airbus model, took off from Sharm el-Sheikh shortly before 6 a.m. for St. Petersburg in Russia and disappeared from radar screens 23 minutes after takeoff.

The Egyptian officials said the aircraft was cruising at 36,000 feet when contact with air traffic controllers was lost.

Militants in northern Sinai have not to date shot down commercial airliners or fighter jets. There have been media reports that they have acquired Russian shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft missiles. But these types of missiles can only be effective against low-flying aircraft or helicopters. In January 2014, Sinaibased militants claimed to have shot down a military helicopter; Egyptian officials at the time acknowledged the helicopter had crashed, but gave no reason.

Civil Aviation Minister Hossam Kamal said an investigative team has arrived at the crash site to examine the debris and locate the flight's recorders, or the “black box.”

Separately, Russia's Investigative Committee, the country's top investigative body, has opened an investigation into the crash, according to a statement issued Saturday by committee spokesman Sergei Markin.

Earlier in the day, an Egyptian official with the government's Aviation Incidents Committee told local media that the plane had briefly lost contact but was safely in Turkish airspace.