International teams investigating the crash of a Russian airliner in the Sinai Peninsula widened their search for victims and wreckage yesterday,…

International teams investigating the crash of a Russian airliner in the Sinai Peninsula widened their search for victims and wreckage yesterday, after one of the deadliest incidents involving an Airbus in more than a decade

The bodies of at least 163 of the 224 on board have been recovered and taken to morgues in Cairo, the Egyptian cabinet said. The search area now covers a 15km radius from the crash site, rather than an 8km radius, it said

The Airbus 321 operated by the Russian carrier Metrojet crashed early Saturday morning in a remote mountainous area 23 minutes after it took off from the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all on board

Speculation about the cause of the crash intensified after Sinai Province, a militant group which claims to be affiliated with Isis, said it had downed the airliner, a claim both Russian and Egyptian officials have rejected

Viktor Sorochenko, a director of Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee, said last night that the aircraft had broken apart in mid-air, with the wreckage “scattered over a large area of about 20 square kilometres”. But he added that it was “too early to draw conclusions” about the reason for the crash

Russian officials including the ministers of transport, emergency and civil aviation, along with search and rescue teams and investigators, were working with their Egyptian counterparts at the crash site, south of the North Sinai capital of El-Arish, last night

Sharif Ismail, Egypt’s prime minister, said experts had confirmed that the airliner could not have been downed at the altitude it was flying at by the weapons the Sinai militants are known to possess — a position echoed by Maxim Sokolov, Russia’s transport minister