A top American intelligence official has said that “no direct evidence” has yet emerged pointing to terrorism being involved in Saturday’s crash of a Russian Metrojet airliner in Egypt’s Sinai desert that killed all 224 people on board.



But adding to the continuing cloud of mystery surrounding the incident, James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, said a terrorist attack could still not be ruled out.

Clapper’s comments came on a day of contradictory statements as claims by the airline’s operator that a technical fault could not be blamed were slapped down as premature by a senior Russian aviation official.

Russian officials have said the plane, carrying holidaymakers from Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg, probably broke up in midair but said it was too early to say what caused it to crash and – despite purported leaks to the contrary – investigators in Egypt had not begun sifting through the two flight recorders’ data.

Addressing the issue of whether the Airbus 321 could have been brought down by Islamic State, as claimed in a video posted online, Clapper echoed the judgment of aviation and security experts who suggest the group does not have a missile system capable of downing a jet flying at more than 30,000ft. “It’s unlikely,” he told reporters, “but I wouldn’t rule it out.”

Late on Monday, US news outlets CBS and NBC cited defence sources saying an American infrared satellite had detected a heat flash over Sinai at the time of the incident, which could indicate a bomb or some other explosion took place.

Investigators continued to look into the cause of the crash, which occurred 20 minutes after takeoff over Egypt’s northern Sinai – an area where Isis-affiliated militants are present. It was announced that rescuers had completed a search of the 20 sq km crash site.

James Clapper said a terrorist attack could still not be ruled out. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Russia’s investigative committee said 130 bodies and 40 body parts had so far arrived in St Petersburg for identification.

Allegations over factors including the airworthiness of the aircraft and speculation that it was downed deliberately have been swirling since Saturday, with sources in Egypt – both on and off the record – making claims that have been subsequently denied.



The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), where the plane was registered, said regulators there found its safety documentation in order earlier this year. The IAA said it had conducted an annual review of the aircraft certifications in April/May 2015 and found “all certifications were satisfactory at that point in time”.

Concerns about the airworthiness of the plane heightened after it emerged that Metrojet had not paid its employees for at least two months. Representatives of the airline’s owning company, Kogalymavia, insisted there were no financial problems that could have influenced flight safety.

Alexander Smirnov, the deputy general director of Metrojet, said: “We rule out a technical fault of the plane or a pilot error. The only explainable cause is physical impact on the aircraft.”

Pressed for an explanation about what could have caused this impact, Smirnov said he was not at liberty to discuss details because the investigation was ongoing.



That claim was quickly contradicted by Alexander Neradko, the head of the Russian aviation agency who is in Cairo. He said it was premature of Metrojet to comment on the possible cause since investigators did not have enough data to reach any conclusions.

“The Egyptian commission is conducting the investigation and is giving no records and transcripts, be it of the flight recorders or on-ground recorders or radar data, to anyone,” Neradkoon told the Rossiya-24 news channel, adding that the commission had yet to begin sifting through the data.

Smirnov was also contradicted by a source in the Egyptian committee analysing the plane’s black box recorders, who told Reuters the plane had not been struck from the outside as apparently suggested by the airline executive. The source declined to give more details but based his comments on the preliminary examination of the boxes.

Two of the few known facts regarding the disaster, are the plane’s speed and altitude in the runup to the crash. According to Smirnov – and largely confirmed by a commercial air tracking service – the plane dropped 186mph in speed and about 5,000ft in altitude one minute before it crashed having just reached its cruising altitude of around 32,000 feet.

“This isn’t flying, it’s falling. Apparently, the plane sustained damage before this [and] that became the reason for the fall,” Smirnov said.

According to Smirnov – and contradicting earlier comments attributed to Egyptian officials – the plane’s crew did not send a message saying there was an emergency on board or request permission to land at a nearby airfield. Smirnov said this meant the plane had “completely lost operational capabilities when the catastrophic situation began to develop”. Passengers most likely died from stresses experienced after the plane broke up, he added.

The claim by a militant group affiliated to Islamic State has been disputed by Egypt and Russia, suggesting militants in northern Sinai, where Egypt has been fighting an Islamic insurgency, did not have the weaponry to hit a flight at 9,000 metres (31,000ft).



However, Zack Gold, a regional expert on Sinai security, said the militant group’s claim “said they were responsible for downing the plane, not shooting it down”.

Alexander Smirnov speaks to the media during a presentation in Moscow, Russia. Photograph: Denis Tyrin/AP

Gold said: “A legitimate Isis-supporting [social media] account in Sinai said: ‘Why is everyone talking about shooting it down, why is no one talking about a bomb or suicide bomber on board’?”

If a bomb had been planted on the plane, it would suggest security systems at Sharm el-Sheikh airport had been infiltrated or compromised, which would raise a whole range of other questions, he said.

Gold said there had been nothing to support that claim so far, such as a pre-mission video of a suicide attacker. “The group does not have a history of major fabrications, but at the same time it’s curious that they would make this claim without providing any kind of evidence. They have military capabilities, but to carry out this kind of terrorism [on a plane] they would have to display organisation they haven’t shown [before].”

Other experts said an Isis attack would represent a radical departure. Cornell law professor Jens David Ohlin said: “Isis has so far focused on acquiring territory and grasping at the trappings of statehood rather than acting like a traditional terrorist organisation. If indeed the airliner was brought down by Isis, this would represent a new and dangerous development.”



A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said no causes could be ruled out. When asked about a possible terrorist attack, he asked journalists to wait for investigators’ results.



The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who has not appeared in public since the plane went down, adopted a more active role in the crash’s aftermath on Monday. The Kremlin website published a photograph of him meeting his transport minister, Maksim Sokolov, who is leading the commission investigating the disaster.

Putin called for “maximum attention” to be given to the families of the victims, declaring: “We are with you in heart and spirit,” news agency Interfax reported. He called for an “objective picture” of the incident to be determined so that “we know what happened and can react accordingly”.

The dead, including more than 20 children, were all Russian apart from four Ukrainians and one person from Belarus. Bodies of the victims of the crash were due to be taken in a motorcade to a St Petersburg crematorium for identification, according to Russia’s emergency ministry.

Britain said its security officials were looking carefully at the risk of continued travel to Egypt. Sharm el-Sheikh is one of the most popular winter sun destinations for British tourists, as well as Russians, with about 900,000 Britons visiting Egypt every year. David Cameron, who spoke to Putin on Monday about the crash, said travel advice could be reviewed quickly but “on the basis of evidence and not on speculation”.