A Russian civilian Airbus plane carrying 224 people, mostly tourists, crashed in Egypt's Sinai peninsula today with most of those on board feared dead as the jet's wreckage was found in a mountainous area.
The Egyptian air traffic control had lost contact with the Airbus shortly after it took off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh for St Petersburg, sources said.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sharif Ismail's office in a statement said a Russian civilian plane has crashed in central Sinai.
The reason behind the plane crash was yet to be ascertained but preliminary assesments by security and aviation officials indicated that the Russian plane crashed in the Sinai peninsula due to "technical reasons".
The aircraft belonged to Kogalymavia airline, a small airline based in Western Siberia, according to Russian media reports.
Security forces surrounded the area of the crash and ambulances rushed to the place of the incident.
Prime Minister Ismail formed a cabinet level crisis committee and called for an urgent meeting to deal with the incident.
The debris of the Russian jetliner was found in an area in the south Al-Arish city in North Sinai, Egypt's civil aviation ministry said in a statement.
"Military planes have discovered the wreckage of the plane... In a mountainous area, and 45 ambulances have been directed to the site to evacuate dead and wounded," a cabinet statement said.
The plane was carrying 217 passengers and seven crew members.
Security officials said those on board were feared dead as the plane was completely destroyed.
Rescue teams and security forces were searching for survivors, however, poor weather conditions in the area had made their job difficult, officials said.
At least 17 children were on board the plane, Russian aviation authority sources said.
The ministry of health is currently counting the number of dead and survivors and it will soon announce the details.
