CAIRO — The head of the Egyptian committee investigating the crash of a Russian charter plane over the Sinai Peninsula said Saturday that investigators were focusing on a sound heard in the last second of a 23-minute cockpit voice recording, but insisted it was still premature to consider any specific explanations.
At a news conference in Cairo, Ayman al-Muqaddam, the head of the committee, confirmed previously reported data about the Oct. 31 crash, which killed all 224 aboard, and said 58 investigators and technical advisers from Egypt and France, Russia, Ireland and Germany were working on the inquiry.
He did not elaborate on the sound on the recording and emphasized that all possibilities were being considered, including an explosion of a lithium battery in a passenger's luggage or engine fatigue. "We can say that an in-flight breakup took place," Muqaddam said. "Saying more than this would be entering the space of speculation."
He said nothing about the theory that a terrorist bomb brought down the plane, an explanation that has been endorsed by Britain and that President Barack Obama has said he is taking "very seriously."
The Airbus A321, flown by the Russian airline Metrojet, was on its way from the Red Sea resort town Sharm el Sheikh to Moscow when it disappeared from radar screens at about 30,000 feet. Egypt, which is highly dependent on the money tourists bring to Sharm el Sheikh, has dismissed any suggestion that a bomb exploded on the plane.
In an apparent reference to the bomb theory, Muqaddam said that some media reports "claimed to be based on official intelligence which favors a certain scenario for the cause of the accident," and that Egypt had not been provided with that information. After fielding two questions, he left hurriedly, saying, "Please, people are waiting for me!"