Cause of Sinai Crash appears to have been a bomb

Intelligence suggests the Russian plane that crashed in Egypt killing all 224 people on board may have been brought down by a bomb, US and UK officials say.

But they say they have yet to reach a formal conclusion.

Britain earlier suspended flights to and from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, from where the flight had departed.

Egypt has dismissed claims by militants linked to Islamic State (IS) that they brought down the plane. Russian experts say it is too early to say.

Separately on Wednesday, Egyptian officials said the cockpit voice recorder of the Metrojet Airbus 321 was badly damaged in the crash.

However, they managed to extract information from the flight data recorder which is ready to be analyzed by investigators, Egypt's Civil Aviation Minister Mohamed Hossam Kamal said.

'Significant possibility'

The plane, bound for St Petersburg, crashed in Egypt's Sinai desert just 23 minutes after take-off from Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday. Most of those on board the plane, which was operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia, were Russian.

"We have concluded that there is a significant possibility that the crash was caused by an explosive device on board the aircraft," UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told reporters after the government's crisis response committee met late on Wednesday.

He said Britain was suspending all flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh indefinitely and UK nationals already there would be helped to leave once extra security measures were put in place.

Investigators hope flight data will provide clues as to what caused the plane to crash

An unnamed US official told the Associated Press news agency they had reached the "tentative conclusion", after intercepting communications, that an IS affiliate in the Sinai peninsula had planted an explosive device on the plane.

"A bomb is a highly possible scenario," another US official told the AFP news agency.

But the officials stressed that forensic evidence, including the flight recorders, was still being analyzed.

On Tuesday, US media reported that a military satellite had detected a "heat flash" over the Sinai at the time of the crash.

It said data was still being analyzed and that although the flash could have been caused by a bomb, a fuel tank or engine explosion was also possible.

Mr Sisi, dismissed as "propaganda" claims that militants linked to IS brought down the aircraft.

The militants have carried out a series of deadly attacks against Egyptian security forces in recent years. Kogalymavia earlier this week blamed "external influence" for the crash, but the head of Russia's aviation agency said such talk was premature.

So why would the Islamic State, if indeed they planted a bomb, (as they claim) turn the stink eye on Russia?  Likely, because of the Russian presence in Syria, on the ground and in the air. Russia has not been aggressive in targeting ISIS . They have, in fact, so far, established ground troops and weapons near rebel strongholds and targeted several from the air.