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No results so far from Russian plane crash probe: Kremlin

Xinhua, November 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

None of the assumptions related to the crash of the Russian Airbus A321 over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula could be confirmed yet as the investigation is still ongoing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.

"Only the investigation may put forward some theories of the accident. We haven't had any statements from the investigation so far," Peskov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

Peskov was responding to British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who said there existed "a significant possibility that the crash was caused by an explosive device on board the aircraft."

On Wednesday, the Cable News Network (CNN) also quoted a U.S. intelligence source as saying that the Russian jet was most likely brought down by a bomb planted by the terror group Islamic State (IS) or its affiliate.

The chief of Russia's Federal Aviation Agency Rosaviatsia, Alexander Neradko, told the Rossiya-24 TV channel Thursday that experts will look into whether there was any dangerous material on board the plane.

The Russian Metrojet A321 plane, bound for Russia's second-largest city St. Petersburg, crashed early Saturday about 23 minutes after taking off from Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all the 224 passengers and crew members, mostly Russians, onboard.

The Sinai-based group "Sinai State" that had announced loyalty to the IS claimed responsibility for the crash soon after it happened, but Moscow has dismissed the claim as incredible.

The information from the plane's flight data recorder has been successfully copied and passed to the inquiry commission to be decoded, processed and analyzed, Interfax said in a separate report, citing the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC).

However, it added that the cockpit voice recorder has suffered serious mechanical damage, and that experts from the IAC and France are trying to copy the recordings stored in the device. Endi