| New York Times | - |
WASHINGTON
- President Obama said Thursday evening that there was “a possibility”
that a terrorist bomb was responsible for the destruction of a Russian
passenger plane that broke apart last Saturday over the Sinai Peninsula
in Egypt.
Bomb Is ‘Possibility’ in Loss of Russian Jet Over Egypt, Obama Says
Cameron and Sisi on Russian Plane
In a joint news conference on
Thursday, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt and Prime Minister
David Cameron of Britain spoke about working together to ensure the
safety of both countries’ citizens.
By REUTERS on Publish Date November 5, 2015.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
Watch in Times Video »
WASHINGTON — President Obama
said Thursday evening that there was “a possibility” that a terrorist
bomb was responsible for the destruction of a Russian passenger plane
that broke apart last Saturday over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.
Mr.
Obama said in a radio interview that there may have been a bomb on the
plane, but he did not go as far as his counterparts in Britain, who have
suggested that the destruction of the plane, and the death of all on board, was most likely the result of a terrorist explosion.
“I don’t think we know yet,” Mr. Obama told the Seattle radio station KIRO
during an interview broadcast on Thursday afternoon. “Whenever you’ve
got a plane crash, first of all you’ve got the tragedy, you’ve got
making sure there’s an investigation on site. I think there is a
possibility that there was a bomb on board. And we are taking that very
seriously.”
“We
are going to spend a lot of time making sure our own investigators and
our own intelligence community figures out exactly what’s going on
before we make any definitive pronouncements,” Mr. Obama added. “But it
is certainly possible that there was a bomb on board.”
Investigating the Russian Plane Crash in Egypt
Here’s a look at what has happened since a Russian plane went down in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
At
the White House earlier in the day, administration officials said that
the United States had not yet made a determination about the cause of
the crash near the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el Sheikh, but added
that the government had not excluded the possibility of a bomb.
“We
can’t rule anything out, including the possibility of terrorism,” Josh
Earnest, the White House press secretary, told reporters in Washington.
In London on Thursday, Prime Minister David Cameron
said that “more likely than not a terrorist bomb” had brought down the
plane as he announced plans to bring British citizens back from Sharm el
Sheikh.
Mr.
Obama’s comments were the first direct indication by the president that
the downing of the Russian airliner might have been something other
than a technical malfunction. American officials have repeatedly
cautioned that the cause of the crash was still under investigation.
Officials have noted that no American airlines fly to or from the airport in Egypt
where the Russian plane began its flight. And they said before the
crash, the Federal Aviation Administration had already issued guidance
to airlines to fly higher above the region.
Mr.
Obama’s comments came during a series of short interviews with five
radio stations across the country in which the president urged people to
sign up for health insurance at HealthCare.gov during the current open
enrollment period. During one of the interviews, Mr. Obama was asked
about the Russian plane.
In
recent days, administration officials have noted the differences
between the crash of the Russian plane and other airline disasters.
Unlike the case last year of the missing Malaysian jetliner, the United
States does not have F.B.I. agents working directly on the crash.
“Right
now there are not,” Mr. Earnest said Wednesday afternoon. “Right now
this is an Egyptian investigation. The Russians are involved in it.”
Officials
have said American investigators were “in touch” with their
counterparts in other countries who are looking into the crash. But
without an American known to be on the flight — a presence that often
gives officials a reason to participate in the investigation of a crash —
there has been no reason for direct United States involvement, they
said.
The Russians and the Egyptians have also not asked for help from the United States in the investigation, officials said.
Mr.
Cameron made his remarks about the crash in an appearance at No. 10
Downing Street with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt.
“My
role is to act in the right way to keep British citizens safe and
secure,” Mr. Cameron said. He did not cite what specific intelligence he
had suggesting the explosion that destroyed the Russian plane about a
half-hour after it took off from Sharm el Sheikh was deliberate.
Mr.
Sisi, who has counseled against jumping to premature conclusions, did
not criticize Mr. Cameron’s decision to temporarily suspend flights
between Britain and Sharm el Sheikh, but Egyptian officials in Cairo did
just that.
Hossam
Kamal, the Egyptian minister of civil aviation, said that the
suggestion of a bomb was not based on facts — and that there was as yet
no evidence for that theory. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the
British government had made the decision to halt flights unilaterally.
In
a telephone conversation on Thursday with Mr. Cameron, President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia also took exception to his comments, saying
that any “assessment of the causes of the crash should be based on the
data” from the investigation, the Kremlin said in a statement.
While
there has been much speculation about what brought down the jet, the
cause largely remains a mystery. American military officials said this
week that satellite surveillance had detected a flash of light
as the plane was ripped apart, suggesting that it had been blown up by a
bomb, an explosion caused by a mechanical failure or the ignition of
fuel.
Mr.
Sisi, standing next to Mr. Cameron, acknowledged that Britain had
previously raised safety concerns. “Ten months ago, we were asked by our
British friends to send teams to Sharm el Sheikh airport to make sure
that all our security procedures there were good enough, and to provide
adequate safety and security for our passengers,” he said, adding that
the Egyptian authorities were ready to address any outstanding concerns.
The
prime minister’s office announced later Thursday that British and
Egyptian officials “agreed on a package of additional security measures
that is being put in place rapidly,” and flights to Britain from Sharm
el Sheikh would resume on Friday. Two British airlines, Monarch and
EasyJet, said they were ready to run flights to bring stranded tourists
back to Britain from the Red Sea resort, where there are an estimated
20,000 British citizens.
Flights to Sharm el Sheikh from Britain remained suspended.
Two
subsidiaries of the German airline Lufthansa, the Düsseldorf-based
Eurowings and Edelweiss Air, which operates out of Zurich, suspended
their Sharm el Sheikh flights on Thursday. Lufthansa said the group was
working out a plan to help passengers return home.
Aleksandr
Neradko, head of the Federal Air Transport Agency in Russia, said
investigators in Egypt looking into the crash would be examining the
wreckage of the airplane, including the hand baggage and victims’ bodies
to see if there were traces of explosive substances.
Also
on Thursday, the first two funerals were held for victims of the crash.
The funeral for Nina Lushchenko, 60, who ran a school canteen, was a
traditional Orthodox service at a 16th-century church in Veliky
Novgorod, about 125 miles south of St. Petersburg.
The funeral for another victim, Aleksei Alekseev, 31, took place in St. Petersburg.
Correction: November 5, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated something United States officials noted about the airport at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh. No American airlines land or depart, not no airlines at all.
An earlier version of this article misstated something United States officials noted about the airport at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh. No American airlines land or depart, not no airlines at all.
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