‘Explosive device’ may have brought down Russian airliner over Egypt, UK officials say

Did ISIS plant a bomb? Fox News:

The Russian plane that went down in Egypt’s volatile Sinai Peninsula on Saturday “may well have been brought down by an explosive device,” the UK Prime Minister’s Office announced Wednesday.

A spokesman said British investigators were headed to Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh Airport to analyze the security there, and delayed all flights to the UK from that airport “as a precautionary measure.”

The statement from 10 Downing Street marks one of the most overt suggestions from a foreign government that a bomb may have brought down the jet.

If a bomb were involved in the crash, it’s highly unlikely the explosive came in contact with U.S. carriers because they are not permitted to fly out of Sharm el-Sheikh Airport, White House Press Secretary John Earnest told reporters during a Wednesday press conference. There are also no direct flights from that airport to the U.S.

Terrorism has not been ruled out as a cause for the crash, a U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, told Fox News. The flight’s passenger manifest is being run through watch lists and terror databases in the U.S. to identify suspect individuals, Fox News confirms.

Earnest said the U.S. was cooperating with teams from Egypt, which have taken the lead in the investigation, and with teams from Russia.

Cockpit recordings from the plane revealed unusual sounds the moment it went off the radar, Russian media reports say.

An unnamed source told Russian news agency Interfax that “sounds uncharacteristic of routine flight were recorded preceding the moment that the aircraft disappeared from radar screens,” according to The Guardian.

The news agency said it had viewed a transcript of the cockpit recordings recovered from black boxes being examined by Egyptian officials. The crash killed all 224 people on board.

The source said a situation had developed on the plane “suddenly and unexpectedly.” Investigators have yet to release a report on the crash and pilots spoke to air traffic controllers in a routine exchange four minutes before the plane went down, The Guardian reports.