Russia's top Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case against airline Kogalymavia after one of its planes with 224 people aboard crashed in Egypt yesterday, Russian news agencies said, quoting the committee's spokesman.
The Airbus A-321 jet was flying from the Egyptian Sinai Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg in Russia when it went down in a desolate mountainous area of central Sinai soon after daybreak.
The aircraft took off at 5:51 a.m. Cairo time (0351 GMT) and disappeared from radar screens 23 minutes later, Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry said in a statement. It was at an altitude of 31,000 feet (9,400 meters) when it vanished from radar screens.
Russian news agencies reported that the Investigative Committee's case had been brought under an article regulating "violation of rules of flights and preparations for them".
The committee spokesman Vladimir Markin was quoted as saying that the case had been brought under Article 263 of the Criminal Code: "Violation of the safety rules for movement and exploitation of air, sea or internal water transport".
Russian state-run television station Rossiya 24 reported that officials were searching the Kogalymavia airline's offices in Moscow and had seized some documents.
Russia's Investigative Committee said it was checking fuel samples from the aircraft's last refueling stop, in the southern Russian city of Samara. Searches were being carried out at Moscow's Domodedovo airport where the airline that operated the plane is based.
The Airbus A321 is operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia under the brand name Metrojet.
A north Sinai security source said initial examination suggested the crash could have been caused by a technical fault; but it was too early to draw any firm conclusions. The plane, he said, had landed in a "vertical fashion", contributing to the scale of devastation and burning.
"I now see a tragic scene," an Egyptian security officer at the site told Reuters by telephone. "A lot of dead on the ground and many who died whilst strapped to their seats.
"The plane split into two, a small part on the tail end that burned and a larger part that crashed into a rockface. We have extracted at least 100 bodies and the rest are still inside," the officer, who requested anonymity, said.
Emergency services and aviation specialists searched the wreckage for any clues to the crash. One of two flight recorders was quickly found, but wreckage was scattered over a wide area.
The security officer said 120 bodies had been found intact.
Russian television showed film of anxious relatives and friends waiting for information at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo airport. A middle-aged woman was shown weeping and crying out.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared a day of national mourning for Sunday. The passengers included 214 Russians and three Ukrainians.
A militant group affiliated to Islamic State in Egypt, Sinai Province, said in a statement carried by the Aamaq website, which acts as a semi-official news agency for Islamic State, that it had brought down the plane "in response to Russian airstrikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land".
Russia's Transport Minister said the Islamic State claim "can't be considered accurate".
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