A Russian passenger plane carrying 224 passengers and crew members crashed shortly after take off from Sharm El Sheik, a popular Red Sea resort in the Sinai Peninsula.
The Airbus A321, operated by Russia's Metrojet, was descending at about 6,000 feet per minute before communication with the flight was lost, 23 minutes after leaving Sharm El Sheik International Airport, according to Flightradar.com, which tracks flight routes. The plane had reached a cruising altitude of 31,000 feet, Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry said in an e- mailed statement on Saturday.
At that altitude, it is "very unusual for something to happen," Paul Hayes, director of safety at Ascend Worldwide Ltd, a London-based company that gathers air data for insurers, said.
A militant group affiliated to Islamic State in Egypt claimed responsibility for the downing of a Russian passenger plane that crashed in Egypt's Sinai peninsula on Saturday, the group said in a statement circulated by supporters on Twitter.
Egyptian security sources earlier on Saturday said early investigations suggested the plane crashed due to a technical fault.
The claim of responsibility was also carried by the Aamaq website which acts as a semi official news agency for Islamic State.
"The fighters of the Islamic State were able to down a Russian plane over Sinai province that was carrying over 220 Russian crusaders. They were all killed, thanks be to God," the statement circulated on Twitter said.
The wreckage was found in the Al Hassana area of central Sinai, about 50 km from where Egyptian security forces have been waging a fierce campaign against militants in northern Sinai that have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. An Egyptian investigation team has reached the crash site and started searching for the black boxes, civil aviation authorities said in a statement.
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Egyptian search and rescue team members have found more than 100 bodies, including those of five children, in the wreckage, an officer on the scene said. "I now see a tragic scene. A lot of dead on the ground and many died whilst strapped to their seats," the officer, who requested anonymity, said.
"The plane split into two, a small part on the tail end that burned and a larger part that crashed into a rock. We have extracted at least 100 bodies and the rest are still inside."
The plane, which took off at 5:51 am Cairo time, was headed for St Petersburg, the Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry said.
A convoy of 45 ambulances has been sent to the crash area to evacuate casualties, Egypt's Cabinet said an e-mailed statement. Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail has cancelled a visit to Ismailia and is heading a crisis management committee to follow the incident.
Ismail, asked by reporters if he suspected the plane may have been shot down, said that "the investigations haven't started yet" and that a "specialised investigations team will begin these investigations."
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to the families of the passengers and ordered Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to form a commission to investigate the crash, while Russian investigators have been sent to Egypt, Interfax reported.
Russian state television said about 100 people, including children, had gathered at Pulkovo International Airport in St Petersburg awaiting information about the flight. Airbus spokesman Stefan Schaffrath said in a message that the company was "aware of the media reports and all efforts are now going towards assessing the situation."
The Airbus A320 family is by far Airbus's most popular plane type - a single-aisle, twin-engine type typically used on shorter cross-continental routes that laid the foundation for the company's success and established it alongside Boeing Co to create a global duopoly for large passenger planes. The A321 is the longest variant of the plane, which comes in four sizes.
The A321 involved in the incident was about 18 years old had been in service with the airline since 2012, according to the database of Airfleets.net. The plane was powered by two IAE V2533-A5 engines, one of two choices of powerplants for that model.
