Flights from the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh to the UK have been stopped apparently on the orders of the UK government due to new fears that an Russian passenger aircraft that crashed in the North Sinai peninsula was attacked by terrorists.

In a statement, it said that while investigations into the Russian Metrojet disaster were ongoing, as more evidence has come to light it is concermed the plane has was downed by an explosive device.
From Scandinavia Star Tour, Amisol and Atlantis Rejser have passengers in Egypt,but tour opeators have not been able to reach, whether they will stop too.

The Russian A321 crashed on Saturday shortly after take off from Sharm, killing all 224 people on board. They were heading to St Petersburg.

The cause of a Russian plane crash in Egypt on Saturday is looking more like an explosion but it is not clear whether it was linked to fuel or engine trouble or a bomb, an Egyptian source close to the investigation of the black boxes said on Wednesday.
“It is believed to be an explosion but what kind is not clear. There is an examination of the sand at the crash site to try and determine if it was a bomb,” the source told Reuters.

“There are forensic investigations underway at the crash site. That will help determine the cause, to see if traces of explosives are found.”

“The plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device”

“While the investigation is still ongoing we cannot say categorically why the Russian jet crashed. But as more information has come to light we have become concerned that the plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device.

In light of this and as a precautionary measure we have decided that flights due to leave Sharm for the UK this evening will be delayed. That will allow time for a team of UK aviation experts, currently travelling to Sharm, to make an assessment of the security arrangements in place at the airport and to identify whether any further action is required. We expect this assessment to be completed tonight.” So says David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, after the plane crash in Sinai this weekend.

The Prime Minister called President Sisi to discuss what measures the Egyptians are taking to ensure the tightest possible security arrangements at Sharm el-Sheikh airport.
“At this stage we are not changing the level of our travel advice,” says No 10.

The aircraft was heading from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, Russia, when it crashed in Sinai, killing all 224 people on board.
“The plane’s tail was found about five kilometers (three miles) from the rest of the plane wreckage, the Russian state broadcaster Russia 24 reported,” says CNN.

The distance from the tail to the rest of the debris could be telling — especially because the tail was previously damaged, CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo said.

“To me, it says (the tail) exited the plane before (an) explosive event and before the fire engulfed the plane,” she said.

The same plane’s tail struck a runway while landing in Cairo in 2001 and required repair, according to the Sviation Safety Network, which tracks aircraft incidents. At the time, the aircraft was registered to the Lebanese carrier Middle East Airlines, registration records show.

Schiavo, a former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation, said something could have gone wrong with the repair work after the tail strike. She said she once worked on a crash where a tail strike that had not been repaired well brought down a plane almost two decades later.

“A bad repair is like a ticking time bomb, because once it’s on the plane, it stays with the plane forever,” she said to CNN.

“The crash in Egypt is a tragic accident that we are sad about. We do not yet know, if it was a fuel tank that exploded, or it was a bomb on board the plane that was to blame for the Russian aircraft crash. So in close cooperation with the Foreign Ministry and the embassy in Egypt we await, what the studies about the crash will tell us before we take a final position on the destination.”

So says Pernille Ammitzbøll, Head of Communications, Atlantis Travel, Denmark. “Atlantis Travel currently has about 300 guests in Sharm El Sheikh, and we have two planes on Saturday and Sunday, also with about 300 guests.

We use respected Scandinavian airlines as Thomas Cook Airlines, SAS and Jet Time, because they have high service and high safety and maintenance, and also we don’t fly over the territory in Sinai, where the Russian aircraft crashed,” says Pernille Ammitzbøll to TTO Scandinavia .