International investigators have begun probing why a Russian airliner carrying 224 people crashed in a mountainous area of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing everyone on board in one of the deadliest Airbus incidents of the past decade, AFP reports.
Flags will fly at half mast on official buildings in Russia on Sunday and entertainment television programmes will be cancelled as part of a national day of mourning for the victims, most of them Russians aged from 10 months to 77 years.
Cairo and Moscow have both rejected the claim from a militant group affiliated with "Islamic State" (ISIS) terrorists that it downed the aircraft flown by the Kogalymavia airline, operating under the name Metrojet, en route from Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg.