Russia shifts gears, suspends flights to Egypt

Move comes amid suspicions of bomb on downed plane.

After initially resisting U.S. and British suggestions that a bomb may have downed a Russian plane over the Sinai Peninsula, Russia suspends passenger flights to Egypt. A Russian agency says airlines will be allowed to send empty planes to bring travelers home,

MOSCOW — In an abrupt turnaround, Russia on Friday suspended all passenger flights to Egypt after days of resisting U.S. and British suggestions that a bomb may have brought down a Russian plane in the Sinai Peninsula a week ago.

The move dealt a sharp blow to both countries’ tourism sectors amid fears about security in Egypt.

Russia’s federal aviation agency said airlines would be allowed to send empty planes to bring home travelers, but it was unclear when Russians in Egypt, estimated to number at least 40,000, would be able to return home as planned from Red Sea resorts.

Within hours of the Oct. 31 crash of the Metrojet Airbus 321-200 that killed all 224 aboard — mostly Russians — a faction of the Islamic State militant group claimed to have downed it in retaliation for Moscow’s airstrikes that began a month earlier against fighters in Syria. The claim was initially dismissed on the grounds that the Islamic State affiliate in Egypt’s troubled Sinai region didn’t have missiles capable of hitting high-flying planes.

But British and U.S. officials, guided primarily by intelligence intercepts and satellite imagery, sug- gested a bomb might have been aboard the aircraft. The Russians and Egyptians called that premature, saying the investigation had not concluded.

France 2 TV, citing an investigator who had access to one of the Metrojet plane’s flight recorders, reported that “the sound of an explosion can be distinctly heard during the flight.” France’s BEA accident investigation agency said it could not confirm the report.

After Britain suspended its flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh, a major Egyptian resort, Prime Minister David Cameron said it was “more likely than not” that the cause was a bomb. President Barack Obama also said the U.S. was taking “very seriously” the possibility that a bomb brought down the plane in the Sinai, where Egyptian forces have been battling an Islamic insurgency for years.

As the suspicions grew, Russia appeared unwilling to countenance the possibility, and Egyptian officials played down terrorism as a cause of the crash, with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi calling the Islamic State claim “propaganda” designed to embarrass his government.

But on Friday, the head of Russian intelligence, Alexander Bortnikov, recommended a suspension of all flights to Egypt “until we determine the real reasons of what happened,” and President Vladimir Putin quickly agreed.

The flight suspension order would last until “a proper level of avia- tion security is in place,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, denying it will run until the investigation was finished. He added that it “definitely doesn’t mean” Russia regards terrorism as the main theory.

Wreckage from the Metrojet plane was brought to Moscow to be tested for any trace of explosives, according to Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov. The samples came “from all parts where traces of explosives could be,” he said in televised comments.

There was chaos, confusion and frustration at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport as Britain struggled to bring home some 20,000 of its nationals stranded since London halted its flights earlier in the week.

DMITRY LOVETSKY / AP Mikhail, the grandson of one of the plane crash victims, Nina Lushchenko, sits at her grave during her funeral in the village of Sitnya, Russia, on Thursday. All 224 aboard the Metrojet Airbus were killed when it crashed over the Sinai Peninsula a week...