WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Saturday, a Russian airliner carrying 224 people crashed in the Sinai Peninsula while flying from the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh en route to St. Petersburg. Following the disaster, Air France, Emirates, Lufthansa, and Turkish Airlines suspended their flights over the peninsula.
“Some airlines have rerouted until the cause is understood, this is not an indication of the cause,” US aviation consultancy Safety Operating Systems CEO John Cox said on Monday.
Cox explained that at present, all possibilities of the crash are being considered, and nothing has been ruled out as to the origins of the accident.
“Investigators are gathering data and that data will lead them to the proper conclusions,” he said. “The flight and voice recorders are in Cairo where Egyptian, Russian, French and other experts can examine the data.”
US aviation portal NYCAviation Founder Phil Derner Jr. told Sputnik on Monday that other airlines’ rerouting is a regular precaution measure.
“Flights avoiding this area is a healthy precaution until more is learned, specifically until the aircraft being shot out of the sky is ruled out,” Derner Jr. said.
The expert noted that shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles are not capable of reaching altitudes above 30,000 feet at which altitude the aircraft flew.
“The only thing that we can tell at this stage is that the aircraft broke apart in the air before hitting the ground, as indicated by the spread-out debris field,” he concluded.
Russian officials have avoided jumping to conclusions regarding the cause of the crash. Both the Kremlin and the Russian Foreign Ministry have stated they would wait for the official results of the investigation once it is concluded.
