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Noise heard in crashed plane recording

A Russian plane which crashed in Egypt was on auto-pilot and appeared to break up in mid-air after a sudden noise, the lead investigator says.

But it’s too soon to conclude exactly what brought it down, he says.

Ayman al-Muqaddam, head of a team of experts looking into one of Egypt’s worst air disasters, said the cockpit voice recording would be analysed to identify the nature of the noise, which Western governments have indicated may have been a bomb.

• ‘Bomb likely’ in Russian plane crash: experts
• Russian aircraft crash caused by ‘external factor’
• Russian airliner that crashed ‘broke up mid-air’

Islamic State militants fighting security forces in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula have said they brought down the Airbus A321, which crashed 23 minutes after taking off from the resort of Sharm al-Sheikh one week ago, killing all 224 passengers.

Fears that the crash was caused by Islamist militants led several Western countries, Russia and Turkey to suspend flights to Sharm al-Sheikh, stranding tens of thousands of holidaymakers and dealing a heavy blow to Egypt’s vital tourist industry.

Muqaddam said the auto-pilot was still engaged when the crash occurred and debris were scattered over a wide area of the Sinai desert extending for 13km, adding that was “consistent with an in-flight break-up”.

The black boxes recovered from the crash site showed that a “a noise was heard in the last second of the … recording”, which will be sent to a specialist laboratory for analysis.

Scientists have used such methods to examine the signature of dying cockpit recordings in aircraft bombings. Comparing the frequencies may help determine whether the sound comes from a deliberate or accidental explosion.

Muqaddam said his team, including experts from Egypt, Russia, France, Germany and Ireland had not yet reached any conclusion. He said structural fatigue, a fuel explosion and even lithium batteries carried by passengers could be a cause.

Muqaddam said no evidence had been provided to his team that the plane may have been brought down by a bomb.

Earlier on Saturday Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that foreign intelligence about the cause of the crash had not been passed on to Cairo.

“The information we have heard about has not been shared with Egyptian security agencies in detail,” Shoukry said.

Egyptain security officials on Saturday were checking video footage at Sharm al-Sheikh airport for any suspicious activity, in the clearest sign yet that they believe the Russian plane could have been deliberately targeted.

“We want to determine if, for instance, anyone sneaked past security officials or the metal detectors. We are also trying to determine if there was any unusual activity among policemen or airport staff,” one of the officials told Reuters.

Western intelligence sources have said British and US spies intercepted “chatter” from suspected militants suggesting that a bomb, possibly hidden in luggage in the hold, had downed the plane.

Map of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt showing flight path of the Russian Metrojet Airbus A321 before it crashed.

Flight path of the doomed jetliner.

The Islamic State-affiliated Sinai Province, which claimed it brought the plane down, said it acted in revenge for Russian air strikes against Islamist fighters in Syria.

On Friday, Moscow suspended flights to Egypt, leaving nearly 80,000 Russians stranded, mainly in the Red Sea resorts of Hurghada and Sharm al-Sheikh.

British attempts to fly home thousands of holidaymakers on Friday ran into trouble when Egypt restricted the number of flights, citing capacity at Sharm al-Sheikh airport and British airliners’ refusal to take passenger luggage in the hold.

A British official at Sharm al-Sheikh airport said nine flights were expected to repatriate 2000 stranded British tourists on Saturday, and the government hoped to get them all home within 10 days.

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