An A321 passenger jet broke down in midair at high altitude - Russian air transport agency

Russian air transport agency chief Alexander Neradko said that deciphering of the plane’s flight recorders had not yet started

Fragments of the ill-fated A321 Russian passenget jet retrieved from the crash site in northern Sinai indicate that the plane was breaking down in midair at a high altitude, Russian air transport agency chief, Alexander Neradko, said on Sunday.

"Our specialists who are taking part in the investigation along with an Egyptian commission have reached the crash site. It is a large area of more than 20 square kilometers. It is an elongated ellipse about four kilometers wide and some eight kilometers long. All indicates that the plane broke down in midair at a high altitude," he told the Rossiya-24 television channel.

He said that deciphering of the plane’s flight recorders had not yet started.

An A321 passenger jet of Russia’s Kogalymavia air carrier (flight 9268) bound to St. Petersburg crashed on October 31 some 30 minutes after the takeoff from Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh. It felld down 100 kilometers south of the administrative center of North Sinai Governorate, the city of Al-Arish. The plane was carrying 217 passengers and seven crew members. There were four Ukrainian and one Belarusian nationals among the passengers. None survived.