Russian plane with 224 people onboard crashes in Egypt's Sinai peninsula

[Hindustani78]

Last Updated: Saturday, October 31, 2015 - 14:25
Russian plane with 224 people onboard crashes in Egypt's Sinai peninsula | Zee News

Cairo: A Russian airliner carrying 217 passengers and seven crew members has gone missing over Egypt's Sinai peninsula and has possibly crashed, media reports said on Saturday

The flight took off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and was heading to Russia.

As confusion continued to surround the fate of the civil aircraft, an AFP report said that Egyptian PM confirmed that Russian plane has crashed in Sinai.

However, in a conflicting report, news agency Reuters said that the Russian plane which was reported as missing earlier, has left Egyptian airspace safely.

"The ... Russian airline had told us that the Russian plane we lost contact with is safe and that it has contacted Turkish air traffic control and is passing through Turkish skies now," Ayman al-Muqaddam, the head of the central air traffic accident authority in Egypt, said in a statement.

The Airbus that was reported going off radar and crashing in the Sinai Peninsula was travelling from the Egyptian resort Sharm El-Sheikh to St Petersburg.

It belonged to Kogalymavia, a small airline based in Western Siberia.

The Russian aviation authority Rosaviatsiya said in a statement that flight 9268 left Sharm el-Sheikh at 6.51 am (local time) and was due into St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport at 12.10 pm.

The authority added that the aircraft failed to make scheduled contact with Cyprus air traffic control 23 minutes after take-off and disappeared from the radar.

 

[Styx]

no wreckage found yet ?

 

[Beast]

Russian plane with 224 people on board crashed in a mountainous part of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, with medics at the site reporting casualties, officials said.

Ambulances reached the site and began evacuating "casualties," officials and state media reported, without elaborating on their condition.

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the emergency ministry to dispatch rescue teams to Egypt.

"The head of state has given orders to send emergency ministry (teams) to Egypt immediately to work at the plane crash site," a statement said.

The aircraft took off early Saturday from the southern Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh bound for Saint Petersburg in Russia but communication was lost 23 minutes after departure, officials said.

"Military planes have discovered the wreckage of the plane... in a mountainous area, and 45 ambulances have been directed to the site to evacuate dead and wounded," a cabinet statement said.

Officials and the state MENA news agency later said the "casualties" were being transferred to nearby hospitals.

At Saint Petersburg's Pulkovo airport, anxious family members awaited news of their loved ones.

"I am meeting my parents," said 25-year-old Ella Smirnova, a tall young woman seemingly in shock. "I spoke to them last on the phone when they were already on the plane, and then I heard the news."

"I will keep hoping until the end that they are alive, but perhaps I will never see them again."

A senior Egyptian aviation official said the plane was a charter flight operated by a Russian company carrying 217 passengers and seven crew members.

The official said the plane was flying at an altitude of 30,000 feet when communication was lost.

Sergei Lzvolsky, an official with the Russian aviation agency Rosaviatsia told Interfax news agency that the Kogalymavia Russian airline had departed Sharm el-Sheikh at 5:51 am local time (0351 GMT).

He said the Airbus 321 did not make contact as expected with air traffic controllers in Cyprus.

- Communication lost -

"Communication was lost today with the Airbus 321 of Kogalymavia which was carrying out flight 9268 from Sharm el-Sheikh to Saint Petersburg," Lzvolsky later told Russian television networks.

"The plane departed Sharm el-Sheikh with 217 passengers and 7 crew members. At 7:14 Moscow time the crew was scheduled to make contact with... Larnaca, however this did not happen and the plane disappeared from the radar screens."

The flight was scheduled to land at St Petersburg at 0912 GMT, he said.

The contents of the plane's last communication with ground crews were not immediately disclosed.

The wreckage was found in a mountainous area roughly 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the North Sinai town of El-Arish, Egyptian officials said.

State television reported that Prime Minister Ismail Sharif was headed to the site of the accident.

The last major commercial airliner crash in Egypt happened in 2004, when a Flash Airlines Boeing 737 plunged into the Red Sea after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh.

The 148 people aboard that flight, most of whom were French, were killed.

Millions of tourists, many of them Russian, visit the resort town, one of Egypt's major draws for tourists looking for pristine beaches and scuba diving.

The resort, and others dotting the southern Sinai Red Sea coast, are heavily secured by the military and police as an Islamist militant insurgency rages in the north of the restive peninsula, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Militants in the north who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Flight from Sharm el-Sheikh...last tracking point in Sinai

From flightradar24

Never heard of Sharm el-Sheikh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[ultron]

RIP

I Guess Ukranians and families of the Malaysians making festival now lol

You are a sick man. Deaths are inevitable in war. Cheering for death is punishable by death.

 

[Total Destruction]

RIP




You are a sick man. Deaths are inevitable in war. Cheering for death is punishable by death.

oh please STFU , who said i cheer for death ..

 

[ultron]

oh please STFU , who said i cheer for death ..

Why should anyone cheer for death, for that matter?

The timing is suspicious. Could be a false flag op and Russia say it was terrorist attack and then gets public approval to deploy ground forces to Syria.

 

[jammersat]

May Allah bless their souls with piece and come

 

[ultron]

May Allah bless their souls with piece and come

peace

 

[Aslan]

Why should anyone cheer for death, for that matter?

The timing is suspicious. Could be a false flag op and Russia say it was terrorist attack and then gets public approval to deploy ground forces to Syria.

Who Supa retard at it again. Lecturing people on cherries death. While cherring for the Russians when they bomb mosques and civilian areas.

 

[haman10]

when they bomb mosques and civilian areas.

that one was new

 

[Aslan]

that one was new

Honestly the mosque picture was posted by this dumb dumb him self so I know.

Civilian areas is no secret.
Yeah laughing matter alright.

 

[ultron]

Shot down by ISIS? Sinai has a lot of ISIS.

Who Supa retard at it again. Lecturing people on cherries death. While cherring for the Russians when they bomb mosques and civilian areas.

I do not cheer deaths. I only report capture of territories. Capturing territories is the only way wars end.

 

[United]

BREAKING: Islamic State group in Egypt claims it downed Russian airliner. Claim so far is unconfirmed.

 

[Gijoe]

RIP