Russian officials have said the plane, carrying holidaymakers from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg, likely broke up in mid-air but said it was too early to say what caused it to crash.
The
source declined to give more details but based his comments on the preliminary
examination of the black boxes recovered from the Airbus A321 which crashed in the Sinai Peninsula
on Saturday killing all 224 people on board.
A civil
aviation source said only that Egyptian investigators aided by Russian and French experts had not yet finished examining
the black boxes.
Russian
officials have said the plane, carrying holidaymakers from the Red Sea resort
of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg,
likely broke up in mid-air but said it was too early to say what caused it to
crash.
The first
bodies recovered from the wreckage arrived on board a Russian government plane
at St Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport,
where grieving Russians left piles of flowers.
A Reuters
photographer saw a white lorry leaving the airport, escorted by police cars,
heading for a St Petersburg morgue, where the bodies were to be identified.
Russian
news agencies said the plane carried 144 bodies and a second government plane
was due to leave Cairo on Monday evening.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin,
who had declared Sunday a national day of mourning, said on Monday the crash
was a great tragedy.
"Without any doubt everything
should be done so that an objective picture of what happened is created,"
Putin said in comments cited by ITAR-TASS. "So that we know what happened."
When
asked if a terrorist attack could be to blame, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said no theory could yet be ruled out.
An
Egyptian militant group affiliated with Islamic State said on Saturday it brought down the
plane "in
response to Russian air strikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land".
Russia's transport minister dismissed the claim, saying it "can't be considered accurate".
Alexander
Smirnov, deputy general director of airline Kogalymavia, which operated the
plane under the brand name Metrojet, said only a "technical or physical
action" could have caused the aircraft to break up in the air.
"The plane was in excellent
condition," Smirnov told a news conference in Moscow. "We rule out a technical fault
and any mistake by the crew."
MILITANTS
His
comments came amid growing evidence that the plane and its crew had passed the
necessary safety and medical tests, and a Russian inspection of its fuel found
that it met requirements.
The
airline said both engines were inspected in Moscow on Oct. 26 and no problems
were found while a previous tail strike had been fully repaired and would not
have affected safety.
The
aircraft had received a certificate of airworthiness earlier this year from
regulators in Ireland, where it was registered.
Russia,
an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
launched air raids against opposition groups in Syria including Islamic State
on Sept. 30.
Islamic
State, the hardline group that controls swathes of Iraq and Syria, has called
for war against both Russia and the United States in response to their air
strikes in Syria.
Sinai is
the scene of an insurgency by militants close to Islamic State who have killed
hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police and have also attacked Western targets
in recent months
However,
militants in the area are not believed to have missiles capable of hitting a
plane at 30,000 feet.
Islamic
State websites have in the past claimed responsibility for actions that have
not been conclusively attributed to them.
Those on
board the flight included 214 Russians, at least threeUkrainians and one Belarusian, most returning
from the Red Sea,
popular with Russians seeking winter sun.
Russia
and other former Soviet republics have poor air safety records, notably on
domestic flights. Some accidents have been blamed on the use of ageing
aircraft, but industry experts point to other problems, such as poor crew
training and lax government controls.
The A321
is a medium-haul jet in service since 1994, with more than 1,100 in operation
worldwide and a good safety record.
Airbus
said the A321 was built in 1997 and had been operated by Metrojet since 2012.
It had flown 56,000 hours in nearly 21,000 flights and was powered by engines
from International Aero Engines consortium.
The
aircraft disappeared from radar screens 23 minutes after take off at an
altitude of 31,000 feet (9,400 metres), Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry said.
According
to FlightRadar24, an authoritative Sweden-based flight tracking service, the
aircraft was descending rapidly when the signal to air traffic control was
lost.
