A top official of Russian airline said the passenger plane that crashed in Egypt’s volatile Sinai Peninsula shortly after takeoff over the weekend could only have been brought down by an “external impact.
The deputy general director of Metrojet Alexander Smirnov told reporters that the cause of Saturday’s crash, which killed all 224 on board, “could only have been a mechanical impact on the plane” in the air.
He added that the Airbus A321-200 dropped 186 mph in speed and about 5,000 feet in altitude one minute before impact.
“We rule out a technical fault of the plane or a pilot error,” Smirnov said Monday in Moscow. “The only possible explanation could be an external impact on the airplane.”
But when pressed for more details about the type of impact and what could have caused it, Smirnov insisted that he was not at liberty to discuss details because the investigation was ongoing.
He also did not explain whether he meant something had hit the plane or that some external factor had caused the crash.
