A Russian aviation official said that the Russian plane that crashed in the Sinai desert on Saturday was destroyed in mid-air, as a deadline for the search operations at the site of the fatal crash nears expiry, a Russian minister said.
Russian Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov said Monday that search operations will conclude at 10:00 pm local time, according to Russian state-affiliated Sputnik news agency.
According to Reuters, Viktor Sorochenko, director of Russia's Intergovernmental Aviation Committee told journalists Sunday that fragments of the plane were "scattered over a large area of around 20 square kilometers." He added, however, that it was too soon to draw conclusions.
It is not unheard of for planes to break up in the sky while ascending. Older planes are susceptible to these "very rare occasions," the New York Times said, citing a China Airlines flight that broke into pieces in the air in 2002.
Airbus A321, operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia under the brand name Metrojet, was carrying 217 passengers and 7 crew members from the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh to St. Petersburg in Russia on Saturday morning when it disappeared from the radar 23 minutes after take-off at an altitude of 31,000 feet.
The tail section of the Russian plane was once damaged in 2001 but was repaired. Russian state-affiliated Sputnik news agency cited Kogalymavia officials as saying that the plane was fully repaired and that the "technical condition of the plane was normal."
So far, multiple reasons have been cited for the crash including a malfunction, human error, or that the civilian flight was brought down by a branch of ISIS operating in Sinai, a claim that was dismissed internationally.
In response to a question on the latter possibility, a Kremlin spokesman said "we cannot say what version of a possible cause of the crash will be a basis of the investigation," Russian state-launched news agency Sputnik reported.
The airline's deputy general director for technical issues told a press conference that before falling, the plane "most likely had received considerable damage to its construction that would not allow it to fly," according to Sputnik.
The debris of the crashed charter flight was found in al-Hasna in Egypt’s North Sinai.
There were no survivors in the crash and the bodies of at least 179 were flown back to Russia by Sunday evening. At time of publication, Egyptian news sources had confirmed that 144 had already arrived.
Egypt has started an investigation upon recovering the black boxes on the day of the crash, and has assured Russia that conditions would be created to assure the broadest possible Russian participation. Although the contents of the flight recorders were due to be analysed on Sunday, as per statements made by Egyptian officials, the black boxes have been sent to Moscow instead.
Egypt's Minister of Civil Aviation Hossam Kamal had said Saturday that the black boxes will be analysed by a central committee inside the ministry of civil aviation, adding that representatives from the "Russian side" and the company that produced the plane, Airbus, will participate in the process.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in a speech on Sunday that the investigation "may take months," adding that these are complex issues that require very advanced technology. He urged the media not to speculate on the causes until the investigation is complete.
This echoes statements made by Egyptian officials since the day of the crash, that it was "premature" to tell what caused the incident.
The crash is raising fears of damage to Egypt's tourism sector, which the Egyptian state has been trying to revive over the past five years.
Some 1.5 million Russian tourists have visited Egypt this year, an Egyptian tourism official told Aswat Masriya.
Last year, 3 million Russians arrived in Egypt, the tourism minister said. Russian tourists represented around a third of all tourists flying to Egypt last year.
