Investigators of the Russian plane crash in Egypt are 90 percent sure that the noise heard in the final second of a cockpit recording was an explosion caused by a bomb. The Metrojet plane was flying on auto-pilot and appeared to break up in mid-air after a sudden noise.
According to Reuters, a member of the investigation team said on Sunday, “The indications and analysis so far of the sound on the black box indicate it was a bomb, “We are 90 percent sure it was a bomb.”
Debris was found scattered across a 13-kilometre (8-mile) stretch of desert, indicating the Airbus A321-200 broke up mid-air.
Islamic State militants fighting security forces in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula have said they brought down the Airbus A321, which crashed 23 minutes after taking off from the resort of Sharm al-Sheikh one week ago, killing all 224 passengers.
Fears that the crash was caused by Islamist militants led several Western countries, Russia and Turkey to suspend flights to Sharm al-Sheikh, stranding tens of thousands of holidaymakers and dealing a heavy blow to Egypt’s vital tourist industry.
The black boxes recovered from the crash site showed that “a noise was heard in the last second of the … recording”. The recording will be send to a specialist laboratory for analysis.
