It is understood that the passenger plane was mainly carrying Russian tourists and was travelling from the Red Sea resort towards St Petersburg, APA reported citing foreign media.
The rescue teams have found the wreckage of the plane in an area South of Arish called Hasna. Search and rescue teams have arrived to the location of the crashed plane. The plane was flying on 31 thousand feet when it disappeared from the radar, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Civil Aviation. There are reports the plane’s captain told air traffic control shortly after take-off that the flight was suffering a technical fault and requested a change of route.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail has canceled all his scheduled visits Saturday and formed a cabinet level crisis committee to deal with the crash.
Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation says it lost contact with a Russian aircraft carrying 217 passengers and 7 crew members over the restive Sinai peninsula, according to Egypt's state-run news agency, APA reported.
The flight took off from Sinai's Sharm el-Sheikh to head to St Petersburg at 5:51 a.m. local time and disappeared from radar screens 23 minutes after takeoff.
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