First
bodies delivered to Russia after Egypt plane crash
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[November 02, 2015]
By Pyotr Kovalyov
ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) - The first bodies
from a plane crash in Egypt in which all 224 passengers, most of them
Russians, died over the weekend arrived in St Petersburg early on Monday
morning aboard a Russian government plane.
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The crashed Airbus A321 plane, operated by Russian airline
Kogalymavia, was carrying holidaymakers from the Red Sea resort of
Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg when it crashed in the Sinai
Peninsula on Saturday morning.
Russian officials have said the plane likely broke up in mid-air but
have stressed that it is too early to draw conclusions from this.
President Vladimir Putin declared Sunday a national day of mourning.
Russian news agencies reported that a first Il-76 Emergency
Situations Ministry plane flew into St Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport
a little before 6 a.m. local time, carrying 144 bodies.
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The ministry said the next plane carrying bodies would leave Cairo
on Monday evening for St Petersburg. On arrival, the first bodies
were loaded onto stretchers and carried into a large white lorry
waiting on the runway at Pulkovo Airport.
A Reuters photographer then saw the white lorry leaving the airport,
escorted by police cars. It was heading for a St Petersburg morgue,
where the bodies were to be identified.
The identification process was meant to start around 11 a.m. local
time.
At Pulkovo Airport on Sunday, grieving Russians piled flowers high
in memory of their dead compatriots. Mourners in Moscow arranged
candles to spell out 7K-9268, the number of the flight that crashed.
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Russia and other former Soviet republics have poor air safety
records, notably on domestic flights. Some accidents have been
blamed on the use of aging aircraft, but industry experts point to
other problems, such as poor crew training and lax government
controls.
St Petersburg authorities have decided that official mourning events
will last until Tuesday in Russia's second city.
(Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Christian Lowe)
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