Three Russian Cabinet ministers are inspecting the crash site of a Russian passenger jet in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
Photos from the site, 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of the city of el-Arish, have shown heaps of smoldering debris dotting the barren terrain, including the plane’s badly damaged sky blue tail. The Airbus A321-200 charter jet crashed Saturday, killing all 224 aboard, mostly Russians.
Spokeswoman Zhanna Terekhova says Sunday that Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov, Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov and Alexander Neradko, the head of the state civil aviation agency, will also be shown the plane’s data and cockpit voice recorders.
An Egyptian official who inspected the plane says it was in good technical condition before it crashed 23 minutes after taking off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
In a related development, teams investigating the fate of a Russian airliner which crashed in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula on Saturday killing all 224 on board have widened their search for bodies and debris.
So far 163 bodies have been found but the search area was extended to 15km (9 miles) after some were located away from the main wreck of the Airbus 321.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered his condolences to President Vladimir Putin and the Russian people over a plane crash in Sinai that killed all 224 people on board.
Netanyahu says “this was a great disaster. We identify with the sorrow and are of course in constant touch with the government of Russia and the government of Egypt to try and figure out the circumstances of the case.”
The plane, bound for St. Petersburg in Russia, crashed 23 minutes after it took off from Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Most victims were Russian.
A local affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group said it “brought down” the aircraft, but Russia’s transport minister dismissed the claim.
