Russian airliner with 224 aboard crashes in Sinai

A Russian airliner carrying 224 passengers and crew crashed in Egypt's Sinai peninsula on Saturday, the Egyptian prime minister's office and civil aviation ministry said. The Airbus A-321, operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia with registration number KGL-9268, was flying from the Sinai coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg in Russia when it went down in a desolate mountainous area of central Sinai soon after daybreak, the aviation ministry said. There was no immediate word on casualties. Egyptian security sources said there was no indication that the plane had been shot down. Islamist militants are active in parts of Sinai. Sergei Isvolsky, a spokesman for Russian aviation authority Rosaviatia, told Interfax news agency that the plane took off from Sharm el-Sheikh at 6:51 a.m.(0351 GMT) and ground contact with it was lost with it about 25 minutes later.