Isis’s militant branch in the Sinai Peninsula has released an audio message repeating its claim to have brought down the Russian jet which crashed on Saturday, and challenging the Egyptian authorities to “prove we did not”.
Wilayat Sinai (Sinai Province) said they would reveal their modus operandi in due course, in a recording entitled: “We downed it, so die in your rage”.
Some experts have questioned the fact that the militant group has again claimed responsibility without providing actual proof. The Amaq news website, which publishes information from Isis sources, carried Isis’s original claim within hours of the plane coming down.
And officials have poured scorn on suggestions that the crash was an attack carried out by Isis, with the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi describing such claims as “propaganda”.
Wednesday’s audio message was believed to carry the voice of Wilayat Sinai’s Abu Osama al-Masri, who has made recordings for the group in the past.
In it, Masri claims the group will reveal “soon” how they downed the plane, and points to the fact that the crash occurred a year after the group first pledged its allegiance to Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Earlier, new data released by the flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 revealed that the plane, which was carrying 224 people from Sharm el-Sheikh bound for St Petersburg, reached 31,000ft before abruptly slowing down and then plummeting towards the ground at 300mph.
The newly-decoded figures, which have been provided to the Egyptian and Russian investigative authorities, offer insight into the final 26 seconds of the Metrojet Airbus 321’s journey, and add to mounting evidence suggesting it broke up at high altitude.
The data are consistent with a sudden, catastrophic incident effectively stopping the plane in its tracks – but still cannot tell us whether mechanical error, a bomb on board or an external impact was the cause.
According to the final information sent out by the plane’s transponders, the plane reached its target cruising altitude then, at 6.13am local time, its groundspeed suddenly dropped.
After that moment the plane starts to drop, first gradually and then increasingly quickly as forward speed slows. Over the next 26 seconds, its direction of travel appears to waver before, at 26,000ft, the transponder data cuts out.
The new readings, posted to FlightRadar24’s website, point strongly to a plane that is shaking as it breaks up at altitude. The figures have been passed to the Russian and Egyptian authorities.
Describing the final 26 seconds of transmissions, FlightRadar24 spokesman Ian Petchenik told Bloomberg: “We see a change in the data. But we have no information about the cause of that change.”
On Monday night, US officials said an American spy satellite had spotted a large “heat flash” emanating from the location of the plane at the time, but the lack of a heat trail from the ground suggested a ground-to-air missile was not responsible.
Investigation sources in Cairo have been quoted in media reports as saying some bodies from the rear of the plane died of “explosive trauma”, sustaining extensive burns and with their skin pierced by pieces of metal.
But in conflicting reports, a Russian source told the Tass news agency that there were “no signs of an explosion impact found during the preliminary examination” of bodies.
And adding further confusion to the mix of reports coming from investigators, Egypt’s civil aviation ministry said last night that there were no facts to substantiate Russian claims that the airliner broke up in mid-air.
Spokesman Mohamed Rahmi said more would only be learned once teams had analysed the contents of the plane’s two “black box” recorders, and that officials were still focussed at the moment on the crash site itself.
On Wednesday morning, a Russian official said families had confirmed the bodies of 33 of the 224 victims of the crash, most of whom were holidaymakers from St Petersburg.
Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov said rescue teams in Egypt have expanded the debris search area to 40 square km (15 square miles) on the ground.
Russian officials have refrained from announcing the cause of the crash, citing the ongoing investigation.
