Rebutting Egypt report, Russia insists bomb brought down Metrojet plane in Sinai as inquiry continues

The Kremlin is refuting Egypt’s declaration that there is currently no evidence suggesting a bomb caused a Metrojet plane to crash in the Sinai desert on October 31. The crash killed all 224 people aboard — the majority of them Russian tourists — and foreign governments and media outlets have widely asserted that terrorists planted a bomb in the plane.

After a long silence, Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry and crash investigation team finally issued their preliminary findings on Monday, which they said indicated there was no evidence linking the tragedy to a terrorist attack.

The Egyptian team is now conducting another round of investigations, the committee’s leader said, which will look more closely at the potential for a technical failure.

In response to the preliminary report, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “I can only remind you that the report of our experts from the corresponding special services concluded that this was a terrorist act,” Russia’s state-owned newspaper Sputnik reported Monday afternoon.

Peskov pointed to the official report Russia’s security chief Alexander Bortnikov sent to Egypt on November 17, which concluded that a homemade explosive device charged with an equivalent of around 1 kg of TNT destroyed the airliner shortly after it took off from the Sharm el-Sheikh Airport.

Egypt’s denial of the Russian report is a case of “eyes wide shut,” Sputnik commented.

The crash was the worst civil aviation disaster in Russia’s history. Speculation of a terrorist attack swelled after the Islamic State-affiliated Province of Sinai militant group claimed responsibility, prompting Russia to suspend all flights to Egypt on November 6. Then on November 14, Russian aviation authorities also banned all incoming EgyptAir fights.

Prior to Russia’s travel ban, the UK, Ireland and German had also swiftly suspended their flights to Sharm el-Sheikh and over the Sinai Peninsula.

Wary of the harmful repercussions on its tourism industry, Egyptian authorities repeatedly warned media outlets and foreign officials to await the final report from the crash investigation team and refrain from spreading rumors about the potential cause of the crash.  

Russian tourists are the mainstay of the Red Sea resort economy.  Around 3 million Russians visited Egypt in 2014, a significant percentage of the total 9.9 million foreign visitors to Egypt last year.