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| Sinai plane crash: Russian airline official rejects possiblity of technical fault | |
| (34 minutes later) | |
| The Russian airline whose jet crashed in Egypt on Saturday, killing all 224 people on board, has said the crash could not have been caused by technical faults or human error. | |
| The crash could only have been the result of some other “technical or physical action” that caused it to break up in mid-air and plummet to the ground, said Alexander Smirnov, the deputy general director of the airline, Metrojet. | |
| “The plane was in excellent condition,” Smirnov told a news conference in Moscow. “We rule out a technical fault and any mistake by the crew,” he said. | |
| According to Smirnov, the plane dropped 186mph in speed and about 5,000ft in altitude one minute before it crashed into Egypt’s Sinai peninsula. | |
| Aviation experts have speculated that a sudden mechanical failure or an explosion could have been to blame after the aircraft broke up over the Sinai desert. | |
| A Kremlin spokesman said there were not yet grounds to rule out any theory for the crash. Dmitry Peskov was replying to a question at a press conference about whether a terrorist attack could be to blame. | |
| The plane was carrying Russian holidaymakers home from the beach resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. | |
| Early on Monday, the bodies of 140 victims of the crash arrived back in St Petersburg. Their remains were to be taken in a motorcade to a crematorium for identification, which will begin later in the day, according to Russia’s emergency ministry. |