LONDON – Russia and Egypt Thursday dismissed as “speculation” British suggestions that a bomb caused a Russian jetliner to crash in the Sinai Peninsula, while the U.K. government forged ahead with plans to bring home thousands of British tourists amid concerns over airport security in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Egypt’s civil aviation ministry said in a statement Thursday that the British theory of a bomb having been smuggled aboard the plane “is not based on facts,” and that all of the country’s airports apply international security standards.
“The investigation team does not have any evidence or data confirming this hypothesis,” Civil Aviation Minister Hossam Kamal said, according to the statement.
Pavel Golovkin / Associated PressThe Kremlin guards pass flowers and toys laid at a memorial for the plane crash victims.
But British leaders pressed their own views. British Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday that the crash was “more likely than not” caused by a bomb.
He later welcomed Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to 10 Downing Street for what was expected to be a tense meeting.
Nearly 40 flights from seven different countries, including Russia, were due to land Thursday in Sharm el-Sheikh, the ministry said. The Metrojet plane broke apart in mid-air Saturday shortly after leaving the Egyptian resort on its way to St. Petersburg, Russia, killing 224 people.
Dmitri Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the British position was based on “unverified information” and that the investigation into Saturday’s crash needed time to run its course.
The head of the foreign relations committee in the upper house of Russia’s parliament, Konstantin Kosachev, went further, accusing the West of pushing terrorism as the cause for the crash because of “geopolitical resistance to Russia’s actions in Syria.”
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The comments came a day after Britain offered the strongest signal to date that a bomb was to blame for the Saturday crash.
In a Wednesday night television appearance, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond cited “a significant possibility that the crash was caused by an explosive device on board the aircraft.” He said that flights from Britain to Sharm el-Sheikh would be suspended indefinitely and that the thousands of Britons already in the city would return home under “emergency procedures for additional screening.”
Hammond told the British Broadcasting Corporation Thursday that evacuation flights would likely begin Friday, and that he expected “more and more” countries to follow Britain’s lead by suspending travel to and from Sharm el-Sheikh. Hammond said it could take “weeks” for normal flights to resume.
A Downing Street spokesperson said a small number of British military personnel had been deployed to the Sharm el-Sheikh airport to assist with the evacuation of British citizens. Officials said the effort would be carried out by commercial planes, not military aircraft.
Stefan Rousseau / PA via APBritain's Prime Minister David Cameron greets Egyptian president Abdel Fatah el-Sisi at 10 Downing Street in London ahead of their meeting Thursday Nov. 5, 2015.
A spokesman for Egypt’s foreign ministry said Thursday that Britain’s decision was taken unilaterally despite “high-level contacts” between the two governments.
Increased security measures at Sharm al-Sheikh airport were “routine . . . with no bearing whatsoever on the causes of the crash,” Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abou Zeid said in a statement.
U.S.-based carriers do not fly to the Red Sea resort city. A U.S. official on Wednesday appeared to give credence to Britain’s theory about the crash, saying that intelligence potentially indicates the Russian plane was brought down by a bomb. But the official cautioned that the information was still being vetted. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, would not describe the kind of intelligence that was being examined.
The affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Egypt has repeatedly claimed responsibility for the crash, which left everyone aboard the Metrojet plane dead when it broke up mid-flight and scattered debris across seven square miles of desert.
The group reiterated its assertion Wednesday in an audio clip that appeared to taunt Russian and Egyptian officials who have sought to play down suggestions that terrorism was to blame.
Dmitry Lovetsky / Associated PressPeople stand near to floral tributes for the victims of a plane crash, at an entrance of Pulkovo airport outside St. Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015.
“Search the wreckage of the plane and bring forth your black box and analyze it. Show us your expertise, and prove that we did not cause the plane to crash,” the group said. “We shall reveal in the coming days the mechanics of bringing down the plane, at the time we want and through the method we deem best.”
Britain’s announcement will significantly heighten speculation that the group’s claims are accurate – particularly the theory that a bomb was smuggled on board, either in the cabin or the cargo hold. Such attacks have become rare in recent decades as airport security has intensified. If a bomb was to blame, the crash could expose previously unknown vulnerabilities.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told CNN on Wednesday that the government had increased security at the country’s airports. But he denied that the precaution was an indication the plane had been brought down by terrorists.
Even with the heightened measures, Britain’s decision to suspend all flights suggested that the country’s intelligence services have deep apprehensions about the state of security at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport.
Britain first announced a pause in flights from Sharm el-Sheikh in the late afternoon Wednesday and said a team of experts was on the ground evaluating security measures. But a spokesperson for 10 Downing Street said they were not satisfied with what they found, prompting Hammond to announce an indefinite suspension of flights and to warn Britons against all but essential travel to the Red Sea resort, which is a favorite of British tourists.
Hammond said the decision was made “very reluctantly,” acknowledging the likely impact on the Egyptian economy. But he said that “we have to put the safety and security of British nationals above all other considerations.”
An estimated 20,000 Britons are on the ground in and around Sharm el-Sheikh. The 10 Downing Street spokesperson, who spoke under customary rules of anonymity, said there would be no flights back to Britain on Thursday and that bringing British citizens home would “take time.”
Show us your expertise, and prove that we did not cause the plane to crash
Ireland’s aviation authority said Wednesday that it would follow Britain’s lead and advise its country’s carriers to avoid Sharm el-Sheikh.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that no U.S. carriers regularly operate out of the Sinai. “The airport in question . . . is not the last point of departure into the United States for any airline, including foreign airlines that do operate in the Sinai Peninsula,” he said.
Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry said Wednesday that the plane’s cockpit voice recorder had been damaged in the crash, which could slow the investigation.
Investigators have taken particular note that the tail of the aircraft was found about three miles from much of the rest of the debris, which fluttered down in pieces from an explosion tens of thousands of feet above the Earth’s surface.
It the tail broke loose first, the pilot would lose the ability to control the plane. That circumstance would be reminiscent of the worst crash of a single airplane in history, the 1984 crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123 that killed 520 people.
Cunningham reported from Cairo. Heba Habib in Cairo, Ashley Halsey III and Adam Goldman in Washington, Andrew Roth in Moscow and Karla Adam in London contributed to this report.