Russian Plane Crashes in Sinai, 224 Killed

(CNN) Jethro Mullen and Arwa Damon - All 224 people on a flight from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg died on Saturday after their airliner broke into pieces in midair. "Disintegration of the fuselage took place in the air, and the fragments are scattered around a large area (about 20 sq. km.)," said Viktor Sorochenko, executive director of Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee. The flight's black boxes - the data recorder and cockpit voice recorder - have been recovered and will be analyzed. While the Sinai Peninsula, where the flight crashed, is home to ISIS-affiliated militants, officials in Egypt and Russia dismissed their claim of responsibility for bringing down the Russian passenger jet. The Egyptian military said militants in Sinai have shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons that only shoot as high as 14,000 feet, far short of the 30,000 feet at which the plane was flying.


2015-11-02 00:00:00

Full Article

BACK

Visit the Daily Alert Archive