CAIRO: A Russian airliner carrying 224 passengers and crew crashed in Egypt's Sinai peninsula on Saturday, the Egyptian civil aviation authority said.

A statement from Egyptian prime minister's office said Sherif Ismail had formed a cabinet level crisis committee to deal with the crash.

Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Mohamed Hossam Kemal said it was “too soon to determine the cause” of the passenger plane crash, a cabinet statement quoted him as saying on Saturday.

The prime minister went to the scene of the crash alongside the tourism and health ministers and offered his condolences to the Russian ambassador, the statement said.

Russia's RIA news agency citing a Russian aviation authority source had reported that the passenger jet traveling from the Egyptian resort Sharm el-Sheikh to the Russian city of St Petersburg disappeared from radar screens in airspace.

The source said the aircraft was an Airbus A-321 jet, had 224 passengers and crew on board, and was operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia.

Women react as they walk at Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg, Russia after the news of deadly crash─ Reuters

Wreckage discovered

Search and rescue teams found the site of the crashed Russian passenger plane in the Hassana area, south of Arish, Sinai.

A security officer at the scene told Reuters by telephone that search and rescue teams heard voices in a section of the plane.

“I now see a tragic scene. A lot of dead on the ground and many who died whilst strapped to their seats,” the officer, who requested anonymity, said.

Egyptian ambulances carrying the corpses of Russian victims of a Russian passenger plane crash in the Sinai Peninsula, off load the bodies into a military aircraft at Kabret military air base. -AFP

“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.” said the officer.

Security sources confirmed that there were no indications that the passenger plane was shot down,

The fears of a possible terrorist attack arose as Egypt's North Sinai is home to a two-year-old Islamist insurgency and militants affiliated to Islamic State have killed hundreds of soldiers and police.

Egypt's air accident chief earlier said that the missing passenger plane on its way to Russia had safely left Egyptian airspace and made contact with Turkish air traffic control.

"The ... Russian airline had told us that the Russian plane we lost contact with is safe and that it has contacted Turkish air traffic control and is passing through Turkish skies now," Ayman al-Muqaddam, the head of the central air traffic accident authority in Egypt, said in a statement.

Putin Declares National Day of Mourning on November 1

Russian President Vladimir Putin expresses his deepest condolences to the families of victims of the crash of a Russian airliner in Egypt and declared November 1, Sunday, as a National Day of Mourning.

Putin also ordered government ministries to offer immediate assistance to relatives of those killed.

People gather at the airline information desk at of Russian airline Kogalymavia’s desk at Pulkovo airport in St.Petersburg─ Reuters

Islamic State claims responsibility

A militant group affiliated to the self-styled Islamic State (IS) in Egypt, said in a statement carried by the Aamaq website, which acts as a semi-official news agency for IS, that it had brought down the plane “in response to Russian airstrikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land”.

Russia's Transport Minister told Interfax news agency said the Islamic State claim “can't be considered accurate”.

An Egyptian soldier stands guard as emergency workers unload bodies of victims from the crash of a Russian aircraft over the Sinai peninsula. -AP

IS websites have in the past have claimed responsibility for actions that have not been conclusively attributed to them.

Russia opens criminal case

Russia's top Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case against airline Kogalymavia after the crash.

RIA news agency reported that the Investigative Committee's case had been brought under an article regulating “violation of rules of flights and preparations for them”.

Interfax reported committee spokesman Vladimir Markin as saying that the case had been brought under Article 263 of the Criminal Code: “Violation of the safety rules for movement and exploitation of air, sea or internal water transport”.

Markin also said that a group of investigators and crime experts had been formed and would head to Egypt.

“They will operate in agreement with the competent organs and together with the representatives of the Republic of Egypt in accordance with the norms of national and international law,” Markin said, according to Interfax.

Egyptian paramedics load the corpses of Russian victims of a Russian passenger plane crash in the Sinai Peninsula, into a military aircraft at Kabret military air base. -AFP

The airline Kogalymavia however said that it saw no grounds to blame human error for the crash of the airliner.

RIA and Interfax news agencies of Russia cited an airline spokeswoman saying that the pilot had 12,000 hours flying experience. She also said that the plane had been fully serviced

A321 is a 185-seat medium-haul jet in service since 1994, with over 1,100 in operation worldwide. It is a highly automated aircraft relying on computers to help pilots stay within safe flying limits.

Saturday's crash is the second fatal accident involving this variant of the A320 jetliner family, according to data from the Flight Safety Foundation.

An authoritative Sweden-based aviation tracking service said the aircraft, having made an apparently smooth take off, lurched into a rapid descent shortly after approaching cruising altitude.