MOSCOW, November 2./TASS/. Statements of Kogalymavia carrier about external influence on the Airbus A321 that crashed in Sinai on Saturday are premature and unfounded, the head of the Rosaviatsia Federal Air Transport Agency, Alexander Neradko, told Rossiya 24 television on Monday.
"This statement is premature and is not founded on any real facts," he said. "A lot of work is in store to examine in detail airplane components, decode and analyze data of flight recorders. It is premature and there are no grounds for drawing any conclusions about the reason of plane’s disintegrating in mid-air," he said.
Kogalymavia Flight 9268 came down about half-an-hour after leaving the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for the Russian city of St. Petersburg. The disaster site is 100 kilometres south of the administrative center of North Sinai Governorate, the city of Al-Arish. All 224 aboard the plane perished.
- Search area at Sinai crash site expanded to 30 square kilometers
- A321 black boxes to be decoded in Egypt or in France — aviation authority
- Media: Egypt Air’s contract on maintenance of Kogalymavia aircraft expired 3 months ago
- Putin demands thorough investigation of Flight 9268 crash in Egypt
- Black boxes retrieved from A321 plane’s crash site in Egypt in good condition — minister
- No possible causes of air crash in Egypt should be ruled out — Kremlin