Kogalymavia Flight 9268, Airbus 321 down (EI-ETJ)

[Melchior Timmers]

as reported on various sites, including CNN:

Cairo, Egypt (CNN)A Russian passenger airliner crashed Saturday in the Sinai, Egypt's Prime Minister Sharif Ismail said in a statement.

The Prime Minister is meeting with ministers and security officials regarding the crash. Russian state media reported that the plane was carrying 224 people.

The Northern Sinai medical department declared a state of emergency, according to the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper. Al-Ahram repored that more than 20 ambulances had been directed to the crash site, between the villages of Al-Kuntillah and Al-Kaseema in central Sinai.
Earlier Saturday, Egyptian air traffic control said it had lost control with the Russian airliner, which was en route from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, Russia, according to Sputnik news, an official Russian news agency.

"A source in Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency told RIA Novosti that Kogalymavia Flight 9268, an Airbus 321 carrying 217 passengers and seven crew members, took off from Sharm El-Sheikh at 3:31 GMT and vanished from the radars after 23 minutes of flight," Sputnik reported.

Russia's Foreign Ministry reported on its official Facebook page that staff at the Russian embassy in Egypt were monitoring the situation. The page, quoting Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, said more information would be released as soon as it was available.

More information is expected soon from the from the Egyptian Prime Minister's office, as well

[Numbercruncher]

Airframe involved is reported to be EI-ETJ, msn 663, ex F-OHMP (MEA) and TC-OAE (Onur Air).

Source: http://aviation-safety.net/database/rec ... 20151031-0

Regards,

Robert W

[YS11]

http://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=& ... 9543,d.ZWU

Russian airliner with 224 aboard crashes in Egypt's Sinai, all killed

EI-ETJ

[Stratofreighter]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34697416

Sinai plane crash: 'External activity' caused crash

14 minutes ago

The Russian airline Kogalymavia has blamed "external activity" for Saturday's Sinai plane crash which killed 224 people.

One airline official said: "The only reasonable explanation is that it was [due to] external activity."

An investigation by aviation experts using data from the aircraft's "black boxes" has yet to give its conclusions.

A Kremlin spokesman has told the BBC terrorism could not be ruled out as a possible cause of the crash.

At a news conference in Moscow, the deputy director of the airline, which was renamed as Metrojet, ruled out a technical fault and pilot error.

"The only [explanation] for the plane to have been destroyed in mid-air can be specific impact, purely mechanical, physical influence on the aircraft," Alexander Smirnov said.

"There is no such combination of failures of systems which could have led to the plane disintegrating in the air," he added.

Another airline official acknowledged that there had been previous damage to the plane's tail in 2001 during take-off.

But he said that the damage had been repaired, and was not thought to be a factor in the crash.

[Numbercruncher]

More information on the tailstrike in 2001 here:
http://aviation-safety.net/database/rec ... 20011116-0

Confirmation of the a/c's identity:
http://www.airbus.com/crisis/

Regards,

Robert W

[jeroenvn]

More information on the tailstrike in 2001 here:
http://aviation-safety.net/database/rec ... 20011116-0

Confirmation of the a/c's identity:
http://www.airbus.com/crisis/

Regards,

Robert W

Perhaps the same as what happened to Japan Airlines (JAL123)?