On Wednesday U.K. has stopped all its passenger flights through Sharm El Sheikh Airport Egypt suspecting Russian plane crash the result of an onboard bomb. It might start special flights to rescue 20,000 British people on Friday.
A Russian passenger jet broke into pieces while flying in the air Saturday in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The plane crash killed all 224 people aboard mostly Russians. It remained unclear what caused Flight 9268 to disappear from radar and crash to the ground, in clear weather only 23 minutes after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh. However aircraft’s black box that contain flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder was found and sent to Cairo for analysis.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence panel stated, “It’s certainly a possibility that an explosive was responsible. It also remains a possibility that the plane came down due to structural failures. I don’t think our intelligence community is prepared to draw any definitive conclusion.”
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Wednesday, “We have concluded there is a significant possibility that the crash was caused by an explosive device on board the aircraft”.
U.K. and U.S. are not formally involved in the Russian jet crash investigation led by Egypt comprises of representatives from Russia, Germany, France and Ireland.
U.K. deferred flights from Sharm El Sheik to Britain, saying, “As more information has come to light, we have become concerned that the plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device.”
ISIS-affiliated militants claimed responsibility through an online post on Saturday for bringing down the Russian passenger plane, but officials in Egypt and Russia dismissed it considering that militants in Sinai do not have long range anti-aircraft missiles. But militant group has claimed again plane crash responsibility through an audio message on social media.
The group, which is active in the north Sinai region where the Russian-operated Kogalymavia flight crashed, claimed hours later that it had targeted the jet in retaliation for Russia’s intervention to strengthen the Shiite-linked government in Syria.
Rep. Adam said, “It doesn’t require tremendous sophistication to bring an explosive onto a plane”.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, arrived U.K. on an already scheduled and was due to meet with Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr. Sisi has pursued to project a steady security environment to attract foreign investment after around four years of political turmoil that destroyed nation’s economy.
