Oct 31, 2015, 03:54 PM
The plane disappeared from radar screens 22 minutes after takeoff while flying over central Sinai, when it was at an altitude of 31,000ft (9,450m), Egypt's foreign ministry said in a statement.
Egyptian military aircraft subsequently located the wreckage of the plane in a mountainous Hasana area, 35km (22 miles) south of the Mediterranean coastal town of el-Arish, the statement added.
A security officer at the scene told the Reuters news agency that the plane was split in two, "a small part of the tail end that burned and a larger part that crashed into a rock".
Up to 50 ambulances were sent to the scene of the crash. The BBC's Ranyah Sabry in Cairo said bodies were found spread over an area of 2 sq km (0.77 sq miles). The security officer said search and rescue teams initially reported hearing voices.
Egyptian security sources say the plane's "black box" has been found. It is not clear whether both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder have been recovered, but they will help investigators ascertain what happened.
The crash site is in an area where the Egyptian government is fighting a jihadist insurgency, but Egyptian security sources told Reuters that there was no indication that the plane had been shot down or blown up.
The plane was carrying 214 Russian citizens and three Ukrainians, the Egyptian cabinet said in a statement. Out of the 217 passengers, 138 were women, 62 men and 17 were children, it added.
Relatives and friends of those on board gathered at St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport
Source:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34687990
Egyptian military aircraft subsequently located the wreckage of the plane in a mountainous Hasana area, 35km (22 miles) south of the Mediterranean coastal town of el-Arish, the statement added.
A security officer at the scene told the Reuters news agency that the plane was split in two, "a small part of the tail end that burned and a larger part that crashed into a rock".
Up to 50 ambulances were sent to the scene of the crash. The BBC's Ranyah Sabry in Cairo said bodies were found spread over an area of 2 sq km (0.77 sq miles). The security officer said search and rescue teams initially reported hearing voices.
Egyptian security sources say the plane's "black box" has been found. It is not clear whether both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder have been recovered, but they will help investigators ascertain what happened.
The crash site is in an area where the Egyptian government is fighting a jihadist insurgency, but Egyptian security sources told Reuters that there was no indication that the plane had been shot down or blown up.
The plane was carrying 214 Russian citizens and three Ukrainians, the Egyptian cabinet said in a statement. Out of the 217 passengers, 138 were women, 62 men and 17 were children, it added.
Relatives and friends of those on board gathered at St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport
Source: