Russian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

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BBC said:

A Russian airliner has crashed in central Sinai killing all 224 people on board, Egyptian officials have said.

The Airbus A-321 had just left the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, bound for the Russian city of St Petersburg.

Wreckage was found in the Hasana area and bodies removed, along with the plane's "black box". An official described a "tragic scene" with bodies of victims still strapped to seats.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared Sunday a day of mourning.

He has ordered an official investigation into the crash, and for rescue teams to be sent to the crash site.

Egyptian officials said 214 of the passengers were Russian and three Ukrainian.

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A commission headed by Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov is to leave for Egypt on Saturday afternoon.

A criminal case has also been opened against the airline, Kogalymavia, for "violation of rules of flight and preparation for them", Russia's Ria news agency reported.

Oksana Golovin, a spokeswoman for the airline, said the company did not see any grounds to blame human error.

She told a press conference that the pilot had 12,000 hours of flying experience. Kogalymavia did not yet know what caused the crash, she said, but the plane was fully serviced.

Police are reported to be searching the company's offices.

Russian authorities say the plane was carrying 217 passengers, 138 of them women and 17 children aged between 2 and 17. Most were tourists. There were seven crew on board.

Egyptian officials investigating the scene said there were no survivors.

A centre to help relatives of the passengers has been set up at Pulkovo airport, Tass news agency quoted St Petersburg city officials as saying.

Initially there were conflicting reports about the fate of the plane, some suggesting it had disappeared over Cyprus.

But the office of Egyptian Prime Minister Sharif Ismail confirmed in a statement that a "Russian civilian plane... crashed in the central Sinai".

Officials say up to 50 ambulances have been sent to the scene.

Access to the area is strictly controlled by the military and the terrain is difficult, correspondents say.

One official told Reuters news agency that at least 100 bodies had been found.

"I now see a tragic scene," the official said. "A lot of dead on the ground and many died whilst strapped to their seats."

The plane split in two, with one part burning up and the other crashing into a rock, he added.

The Egyptian cabinet

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that flight KGL9268 left Sharm el-Sheikh at 05:58 local time (03:58 GMT)

It added that the aircraft went off the radar 22 minutes after take-off.

The flight had been due into St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport at 09:10 GMT.

Kogalymavia airline

• Also known as KolAvia
• Founded in 1993
• Carried out regular and charter flights to other parts of Russia from the western Siberian towns of Kogalym and Surgut, and helicopter flights for the oil and gas industry
• Rebranded as Metrojet in 2012
• After takeover by tourism company TH&C in 2013, began flights to international destinations popular with Russian holiday-makers
• Currently has fleet of seven Airbus-321s and two Airbus-320s

Egypt's civilian aviation ministry said the plane had been at an altitude of 9,450m (31,000ft) when it disappeared.

Live flight tracking service Flight Radar 24's Mikail Robertson confirmed the altitude.

He told the BBC that the plane started to drop very fast, losing 1,500 metres in one minute before coverage was lost.

Aviation official Ayman al-Mukadem said the pilot had reported technical difficulties before the plane went missing, the Associated Press reported.

The BBC's Orla Guerin in Cairo says it is likely there will be speculation about militant involvement in the incident - Sinai has an

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, with local Jihadis who have allied themselves to so-called Islamic State.

But the aircraft's altitude suggests that it could not have been struck from the ground, she adds.

Local weather observations in the vicinity of the rescue scene suggest relatively benign conditions.

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Reuters said:

A militant group affiliated to Islamic State in Egypt claimed responsibility for the downing of a

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n passenger plane that crashed in Egypt's Sinai peninsula on Saturday, the group said in a statement circulated by supporters on Twitter.

Egyptian security sources earlier on Saturday said early investigations suggested the plane crashed due to a technical fault.

The claim of responsibility was also carried by the Aamaq website which acts as a semi official news agency for Islamic State.

"The fighters of the Islamic State were able to down a Russian plane over Sinai province that was carrying over 220 Russian crusaders.

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Jeff Head said:

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View attachment 20798​

Sincere prayers up for the lost, and condolences and comfort to the family, friends, and loved ones of the victims.

We all know that the Islamic Terrorists will strike back in whatever way they can. They have done this over and over again to the US, others, and Russia in the past.

We will have to wait and see what the investigation shows...but one thing is for sure, Putin will react very strongly.

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asif iqbal said:

Well the Soviet Union shot down a Korean airline by a piloted aircraft

I find that hard to believe the pilot did not know it was a civilian airliner

This was back in 1983

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kwaigonegin said:

While that may indeed be factual the truth is we'll never know. The difference as I'd mentioned was that the soviet pilot and his commanders didn't wake up one morning and decide to shoot down a civilian airliner just because. There were just too many variables at play that day which caused the downing most notably the aircraft deviated from known course.
ISIS on the other hand has absolutely no problem doing that and wants to do that. Regardless if an actual isis SAM that brought it down remains to be seen however the fact that they had claimed credit shows they are willing to do something that has never been done before and a game changer.

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Jeff Head said:

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Both Russia and Egypt are denying this claim.

But LiveLeakhas now has posted a video they say was released by ISIS.

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