Third plane with Emergencies Ministry rescuers arrives in Egypt

Aboard the plane are 40 rescuers of the Leader Center with the necessary equipment and also two KAMAZ trucks

The third aircraft of the Russian Emergencies Ministry carrying rescuers who will begin work at the A321 crash site has arrived in Egypt, the ministry’s press service told TASS.

Aboard the plane are 40 rescuers of the Leader Center with the necessary equipment and also two KAMAZ trucks, which will be used to Russian experts.

A total of 43 rescuers of the Tsentrospas unit arrived in Egypt earlier. Thus, the total number of Emergencies Ministry rescuers dispatched to Egypt for search work is 83 people. All rescuers have a vast experience in dealing with the aftermath of similar tragedies, and their equipment and hardware allow them to work independently.

Russian Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov, Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov, head of the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) Alexander Neradko and employees of Russia’s Investigative Committee, the Interstate Aviation Committee, the Russian Ministry of Health and other agencies arrived in Cairo on Saturday. Puchkov will coordinate the work of Russian rescuers at the crash site.

Another aircraft of the Russian Emergencies Ministry - the Ilyushin Il-76 - is to be dispatched to Egypt from Ramenskoy airfield near Moscow . It will transport to St.Petersburg the bodies of the victims of the plane crash.

On Saturday morning, Kogalymavia airline’s Flight 9268 carrying Russian tourists home on board an Airbus A321 aircraft crashed 30 minutes after taking off. The plane wreckage was spotted in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, some 100 kilometers south of the city of El-Arish.

There were 217 passengers and seven crew members on board, most of them were Russian nationals. Besides, four Ukrainians and one Belarusian were reported to have been on the plane. According to Egypt’s officials, no one survived.

November 1 is declared a day of mourning in Russia.