A Russian plane which went missing in Egypt on Saturday with 224 aboard has crashed in the Sinai, news agencies quoted the Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry as confirming. The ministry said in a statement that the debris from the plane had been found near the al-Arish airport, in the Sinai Peninsula. There were 217 passengers and a seven-member crew aboard the aircraft when it departed from the Red Sea town of Sharm al-Sheikh in southern Sinai earlier in the day, according to the ministry. "An investigation team will arrive within hours at the site of the catastrophe to open an inquiry," the ministry said. The plane was on a flight to St Petersburg, in Russia, reported the Itar-Tass news agency. Russian government officials are still trying to clarify the fate of the missing plane, reported Itar-Tass. "The staff of the Russian Embassy in Egypt are clarifying the situation," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Facebook page. "As soon as verified information is received, it will reported to the media." Her post said the missing plane belonged to the Kogalymavia airline, which is also known as Metrojet. Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail ordered the formation of an operations room on the mishap, his office said. Aviation authorities in Egypt lost contact with the plane shortly after it took off from Sharm al-Sheikh, a holiday spot popular with Russians. "Minutes after its take-off, we lost control with the plane, bound for an airport in federal Russia," an aviation official said. He added that all the passengers aboard were Russian holidaymakers.
