Ukraine bars its airlines from flying over Egypt's Sinai

As was reported earlier, Air France, Lufthansa, the Irish air carriers and several other airlines announced they had temporarily stopped flights over Sinai as a preventive measure after the crash of a Russian plane.

As UNIAN reported earlier, an Airbus A321 operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia under the Metrojet brand was flying from the Sinai Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg in Russia on Saturday, October 31, when it went down in a desolate mountainous area of central Sinai soon after daybreak.

There were 224 people, including four Ukrainians, on board, they all died.

The original version of the crash pointed to the possibility of a technical failure, but later it was found out that the pilot had not signaled any malfunction, nor did he request emergency landing. On November 1, the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency reported that the plane broke up in the sky at a high attitude.

In addition, it has been reported that the Russian aircraft fell literally on its back, but it is still too early to draw any conclusions, as experts have been deciphering the flight recorders' data.

Currently, three main theories of the crash are being considered. The decompression and destruction of the aircraft could be due to an explosion in the baggage compartment. It is believed that a local bomb explosion could not destroy the plane by itself, but a sharp drop in pressure could have led to an explosive decompression.

The decompression and breakup of the fuselage could have been caused by a fatigue crack. Fifteen years ago, this plane was involved in an incident at the airport in Cairo. While landing, the pilot tried to straighten out the flight path of the aircraft and sharply raised the nose of the plane, causing its tail to hit the runway.

Another explanation for an explosive decompression could be a faulty engine.

It is reported that the plane was 18 years old and its airworthiness certificate was valid until March next year.

The Kremlin does not exclude an assumption of a terrorist attack on the airplane, but a technical fault is considered as a primary cause.