Britain halts flights to Sharm Sheikh, concerned about Russian crash

British Prime Minister David Cameron raised the possibility Wednesday that the Russian chartered jet that broke apart over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt on Saturday might have been brought down by an explosive device.

As a result, the British government said it was temporarily halting flights to Britain from the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el Sheikh after the Russian airliner crash, which killed all 224 people on board. It was the strongest statement so far by an official of any government to suggest that terrorism might have been responsible for the downing of the plane, though Mr. Cameron did not provide any specific new information about what had prompted his remarks.

Cameron’s office announced the decision to suspend flights on the eve of a meeting with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is due here on Thursday for talks with the prime minister. Sisi had all but ruled out the possibility of terrorism, dismissing as “propaganda” a claim of responsibility by an Egyptian affiliate of the Islamic State.

Source: The New York Times