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Islamic State claims it downed plane

A Russian passenger plane carrying 224 people has crashed in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.

The Airbus A-321, operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia, lost contact with air traffic control 23 minutes after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh, en route to Saint Petersburg.

The plane had 214 Russian and three Ukranian passengers, and seven crew.

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Egyptian security and medical officials said there were no survivors, and that the bodies of the passengers and debris were spread out over an area of five square kilometres.

The Russian embassy in Cairo said: “Unfortunately, all passengers of Kogalymavia flight 9268 Sharm el-Sheikh-Saint Petersburg have died. We issue condolences to family and friends.”

Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered an investigation into the disaster.

The Flight Radar map of the ill-fated flight. Photo: ABC/Flight Radar

The Flight Radar map of the ill-fated flight. Photo: ABC/Flight Radar

The Islamic State (IS) group affiliate in Egypt claimed that it downed the plane, without saying how, but there has been no official word on the cause of the crash.

Online terrorist monitoring organisation Terror Monitor, tweeted an image of an Arabic statement and wrote: “#IslamicState (#ISIS) terror group claims downing of Russian aircraft in #Sinai.”

The unverified statement says the flight crash was not a technical fault, as reported by security sources.

“The fighters of the Islamic State were able to down a Russian plane over Sinai province that was carrying over 220 Russian crusaders,” the statement read. “”They were all killed, thanks be to God.”

Moscow said it was sceptical of the claims.

“This information cannot be considered accurate,” transport minister Maksim Sokolov said in comments cited by Russian news agencies.

“We are in close contact with our Egyptian colleagues and aviation authorities in the country. At present, they have no information that would confirm such insinuations,” he added.

Initial reports said the plane had lost contact over Sinai but these were then refuted by Egyptian authorities, who said it had made contact with Turkish air space.

However Egyptian PM Sherif Ismail later confirmed the crash and formed a crisis committee to respond to the disaster.

“Military planes have discovered the wreckage of the plane … in a mountainous area, and 45 ambulances have been directed to the site to evacuate dead and wounded,” a cabinet statement said.

Relatives of passengers waited for news at

Relatives of passengers waited for news at Pulkovo airport. Photo: AAP

At Saint Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport, anxious family members awaited news of their loved ones.

“I am meeting my parents,” said 25-year-old Ella Smirnova, a young woman seemingly in shock.

“I spoke to them last on the phone when they were already on the plane, and then I heard the news.

“I will keep hoping until the end that they are alive, but perhaps I will never see them again.”

The plane was flying at an altitude of 30,000 feet when communication was lost.

The wreckage was found in a mountainous area about 100 kilometres south of the North Sinai town of El-Arish, Egyptian officials said.

The last major commercial aircraft crash in Egypt was in 2004, when a Flash Airlines Boeing 737 plunged into the Red Sea after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh.

The 148 people aboard that flight, most of whom were French, were killed.

Millions of tourists, many of them Russian, visit the resort town, one of Egypt’s major draws for tourists.

The resort, and others dotting the southern Sinai Red Sea coast, are heavily secured by the military and police as an Islamist militant insurgency rages in the north of the restive peninsula, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Militants in the north who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

– with AAP

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