No cause has yet been established for the Russian-made Antonov Ant-12's crash-landing on the east bank of the Nile River 800 m short of Juba international airport in South Sudan Wednesday, Nov. 4.
But none of the 224 passengers and crew aboard the Metrojet Flight 9268 Airbus 321 survived the airliner's crash in central Sinai Saturday, Oct. 31, en route from their holiday in Sharm El Sheikh to St. Petersburg.
Russian sources following the forensic examination of the bodies and partial remains of the victims flown to St. Petersburg report that they show evidence of an explosion in the plane before it plummeted to the ground.
The general consensus ahead of the Egyptian and Russian probes is that a sudden, catastrophic explosion caused the crash - whether from a bomb inside, "external impact" - as the Metrjet company claims - or from faulty fuel.
