EGYPT: A Russian passenger jet broke into pieces in midair, a top aviation official said Sunday, but he said it was too soon to say what could have caused the crash in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
The plane crash Saturday morning killed all 224 people aboard Kogalymavia Flight 9268 and left debris strewn across a remote area of a region plagued by a violent Islamic insurgency.
"Disintegration of the fuselage took place in the air, and the fragments are scattered around a large area (about 20 square kilometers)," Viktor Sorochenko, executive director of Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee, told journalists, according to reports.
Footage from the scene showed mangled wreckage and piles of belongings from the plane spilled over a largely flat, barren landscape.
Learning that the plane broke into pieces while in the air helps narrow down what could have caused the crash, but there are still plenty of possibilities, one expert said Sunday.
"It narrows it down a little bit, but there are a number of issues that could have affected this plane," said Peter Goelz, a CNN aviation analyst and former managing director of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. "And terrorism has not been ruled out.
"It could have been some sort of catastrophic failure, perhaps caused by an earlier maintenance problem. It could have been a center fuel tank that might have exploded. They're going to have to go back through the entire maintenance history of this plane to see whether all the corrections and repairs that had been ordered have been done."
According to the Aviation Safety Network, which tracks aviation incidents, the same plane's tail struck a runway while landing in Cairo in 2001 and required repair. At the time, the aircraft was operated by another carrier.
While authorities investigated what caused Saturday's crash, mourners paid their respects to victims at a makeshift memorial Sunday at Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg, where the aircraft was supposed to end its journey.
'It suddenly disappeared'
It remains unclear what caused Flight 9268 to drop off radar and hurtle to the ground, in clear weather and just 23 minutes after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh.
Speaking to high-ranking army officers in Cairo on Sunday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi asked them to observe a moment of silence before urging the public not to jump to conclusions. Determining what happened will require a lengthy investigation, he said.
"These are complicated matters that require advanced technologies and wide investigations that might go on for months," he said.
The crash is most likely the result of a technical failure, Egyptian Airports Co. chief Adel Al-Mahjoob told CNN Arabic on Saturday, although he noted that the plane passed a routine check before it took off.
Russian media outlets said that the pilot reported technical problems and requested a landing at the nearest airport before the plane went missing, but Egyptian authorities disputed that claim.
Air traffic control recordings don't show any distress calls, Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Hossam Kamel said at a news conference.
"There was nothing abnormal before the plane crash," he said. "It suddenly disappeared from the radar."
Russia' state-run NTV news channel interviewed the co-pilot's ex-wife, who said he'd told their daughter he was concerned about the technical condition of the plane.
"Our daughter had a telephone chat with him just before the flight," Natalya Trukhacheva said. "He complained before the flight that one could wish for better technical condition of the plane."
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