Air France, Lufthansa stop Sinai overflights after Russia crash

yahoo/afp ^ | 10-31-2015 | AFP

[tcrlaf]

Paris (France) (AFP) - Air France and Lufthansa said Saturday they will stop flying over Egypt's Sinai peninsula after a Russian passenger plane went down in the area with the loss of all 224 people on board.

The airlines said they were taking the measure as a precaution while the cause of the Russian crash was investigated.

The Islamic State (IS) group affiliate in Egypt has said it downed the plane, without saying how, but Russia's transport minister said the claim "cannot be considered accurate" and an Egyptian security official said the plane did not crash because of an attack.

An Air France spokesperson told AFP they would not fly over Sinai until further notice, "as a precaution" while "clarification" was sought over why the Russian charter plane crashed.

Lufthansa told the German newspaper Die Welt it was taking the same measure for the same reason.

[Gay State Conservative]

Last November I flew from Dubai to JFK on Emirates.I got talking to one of the stewards (I refuse to call them "flight attendants") and we started talking about the Malaysian Airlines shootdown.He started telling me that since that incident Emirates started avoiding various chunks of airspace when flying to Europe and North America.

Pretty spooky I'd say.

[Flintlock]

Not to worry. It was almost certainly a bomb.

[mkleesma]

“How does it feel Russia ?...”

Not the time or the place for this kind of crap. Hundreds of innocent civilians are dead.
Have a little humanity.

[McGruff]

Ironically the plane would have flown over Ukraine on it’s intended flight path. I assume it was following it’s normal scheduled flight path.

[SE Mom]

Plus, earlier it was reported the pilot had reported technical difficulties and was requesting emergency landing. However, in press conference just awhile ago that report was said to be untrue. There was no SOS, no communication of any trouble. There one moment, gone the next.

OTOH, the Daily Beast had a plausible scenario involving structural stress from an accident years ago possibly causing midair breakup.

Black box recovered, will know more tomorrow.

Thanks for your early morning thread on this.