LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said Thursday that “more likely than not a terrorist bomb” had brought down the Russian chartered jet that broke apart over the Sinai Peninsula last Saturday, amid despite criticism from officials in Egypt and Russia that his assessment was premature.
In
a joint appearance at No. 10 Downing Street with the Egyptian
president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Mr. Cameron said, “My role is to act in
the right way to keep British citizens safe and secure.” He did not
cite what specific intelligence he had suggesting a bomb had caused the
crash, which killed all 224 people on-board the flight from the Egyptian
resort Sharm el Sheikh.
Mr.
Sisi declined to criticize Mr. Cameron’s earlier decision to
temporarily suspend flights between Britain and Sharm el Sheikh, but in
Cairo, Egyptian officials did just that.
Hossam
Kamal, the Egyptian minister of civil aviation, said that the
suggestion of a bomb was not based on facts — and that there was as yet
no evidence for that theory. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the
British government had made the decision to halt flights unilaterally,
without consulting Egypt.
Earlier
on Thursday, in a phone call with Mr. Cameron, Russia’s president,
Vladimir V. Putin, also took exception to his comments, saying that any
“assessment of the causes of the crash should be based on the data” from
the investigation, the Kremlin said in a statement.
The
British government has gone well beyond any other country — including
the United States — in its public assessment of the crash.
While
there has been much speculation about what brought down the jet, the
cause largely remains a mystery. American military officials said this
week that satellite surveillance had detected a flash of light
as the plane was ripped apart, suggesting it had been blown up by a
bomb, an explosion caused by a mechanical failure or the ignition of
fuel. They also cited other intelligence. But counterterrorism officials
have cautioned strongly against jumping to premature conclusions.
Mr.
Cameron acknowledged that “we need to see the results” of the Egyptian
investigation, but told the BBC, “The decisions that I’m taking are
about putting the safety of British people first.”
Mr.
Sisi, standing next to Mr. Cameron in London, acknowledged that Britain
had previously raised safety concerns. “Ten months ago, we were asked
by our British friends to send teams to Sharm el Sheikh airport to make
sure that all our security procedures there were good enough, and to
provide adequate safety and security for our passengers,” he said,
adding that the Egyptian authorities were ready to address any
outstanding concerns.
The
British government estimated that it could take a week to fly the
roughly 20,000 British citizens on the Sinai Peninsula back home. Two
British airlines, Monarch and EasyJet, said that they would run flights
to bring stranded tourists back to Britain from the Red Sea resort once
flights were authorized to resume.
The
British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said that London planned to
work with Cairo to introduce special short-term security measures, such
as additional baggage screening and searching, to get flights running
quickly to repatriate British tourists. But he said the British
government would then want sustainable improvements in security there
before flights would return to a normal pattern.
“We
will not resume normal flying activity until we are confident that
there are long-term, sustainable arrangements in place that make flying
between the U.K. and Sharm el Sheikh safe,” he said.
Two
subsidiaries of the German airline Lufthansa, the Düsseldorf-based
Eurowings and Edelweiss Air, which operates out of Zurich, suspended
their Sharm el Sheikh flights on Thursday. Lufthansa said the group was
working out a plan to help passengers return home.
According
to the Egyptian authorities, there were 23 flights operating to Sharm
el Sheikh on Thursday from Russia; eight from Ukraine; three from Italy;
two from Saudi Arabia; and one each from Belgium, Jordan and Turkey.
Aleksandr
Neradko, head of the Federal Air Transport Agency in Russia, said
investigators in Egypt looking into the crash would be examining the
wreckage of the airplane, including the hand baggage and victims’ bodies
to see if there were traces of explosive substances. “They will be
studying aspects relating to a possible terrorist attack,” he said. He
said a group of experts had already begun studying the contents of the
plane’s flight data recorder.
In
Moscow, Russia’s airline regulator attempted to shift the focus of the
cause of the crash back on safety issues by questioning the flying
certificates of all Boeing-737 aircraft, a different type of plane from
the one that crashed in Egypt six days ago. A statement on the website
of the Interstate Aviation Committee said that it was suspending flight
authorization for the aircraft, citing questions previously raised by
the United States and Russia about their rudder control system.
The
order came amid growing calls by Russian lawmakers to revive the
domestic airline construction business after the MetroJet crash, and to
limit the importation of older Western aircraft. Russian watchdog
agencies often announce regulatory problems with all kinds of foreign
goods after international incidents or diplomatic disputes.
The
Airbus 320 series of aircraft, which includes the Airbus 321, the type
of airplane that crashed in Egypt, is the most popular in Russia, the
TASS news agency said. The 737, of which there are at least 86 planes in
the fleets of the main Russian airlines, is the second most popular,
according to the Kommersant newspaper.
Also
on Thursday, the first two funerals were held for victims of the Sinai
crash. Nina Lushchenko, who ran a school canteen, was laid to rest after
a traditional Orthodox service held in a 16th-century church in the
town of Veliky Novgorod, 125 miles south of St. Petersburg.
Mrs.
Lushchenko, 60, went to Egypt with Lyudmila Gomechko, one of the
canteen’s cooks, whose body is among the scores yet to be identified.
Another
funeral took place in St. Petersburg, where Aleksei Alekseev, Alexei
Alexeev 31, was buried. Mr. Alekseev was awarded the trip to Egypt by
his employer, whose chief apologized for the decision at the funeral,
according to local news reports, which did not identify the company.
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