Airline had not paid employees for two months
The airline of the jet that crashed into the Sinai had not paid its staff in over two months, Russian news agencies have reported.
The widow of the doomed jet's co-pilot, Sergey Trukhachov, said that he had not been paid for three months.
Metrojet's parent company, Kogalymavia, has wage arrears of just over $1 million (£650,000), according to its CEO Alexander Snagovsky.
The airline flies charter flights to popular destinations such as Turkey and Egypt, and has a history of serious accidents.
A Kogalymavia (MetroJet) Airbus A321, like the one that crashed in the Sinai
AFP reports that in 2010, one of Kogalymavia's Tupolev planes leased to an Iranian carrier made a hard landing and broke up and caught fire, injuring 46 passengers.
In 2011, three people died after one of its Tupolevs caught fire on the runway in the Russian Far North on New Year's Day.
Kogalymavia stopped flying Tupolevs later that year and in 2012, it rebranded itself as Metrojet.
The plane that was involved in this crash had previously been in an accident in which its tail had been damaged. The plane was not operating under this airline at the time, and Metrojet stressed that it was properly repaired and had recent safety checks.
Russia has a poor air safety record, particularly with smaller airlines' unmodernised fleets causing worries.
15:45
A summary of today's events so far
Executives at the airline of the doomed airliner Metrojet announced that it came down due to "external impact", and not technical faults or human error.
Metrojet executive Alexander Smirnov said that the plane was "flying out of control - that is, it wasn't flying, it was falling."
He also defended the airline from claims that it had not paid its staff for over two years, and that the plane had suffered a tail strike in previous years, which had been repaired fully.
The plane's black boxes have not yet been analysed, although one source told Reuters that the jet was not struck from the outside.
Russian investigators stand near debris, luggage and personal effects of passengers a day after a passenger jet bound for St. Petersburg in Russia crashed in Hassana, Egypt Photo: AP
There has been growing speculation in the Russian media that flight 7K9268 may have been destroyed by an on-board explosion.
Russian and Egyptian authorities have both played down claims that the plane was brought down by Isil, as the group has claimed.
Vladimir Putin called for an objective investigation into the disaster. "Without any doubt everything should be done so that an objective picture of what happened is created, so that we know what happened,” he added. "This work should be continued until we are fully sure that this stage is complete,” he said.
The Egyptian government also pushed back on assertions by Metrojet that their Airbus A321 did not suffer a technical fault and was instead brought down by an "external impact".
US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he could not rule out involvement of Isil in the crash, but said that it was "unlikely", adding that "We don't have any direct evidence of any terrorist involvement yet,"
A woman lights a candle during a requiem in memory of the victims of the plane crash in Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg Photo: Getty
A Russian cargo plane landed in St Petersburg this morning, carrying the remains of 140 people. Another flight carrying the rest of those killed in the crash will arrive in Russia this evening.
Russian authorities announced that they had finished combing a 20 square kilometre area for bodies, and would now concentrate on working out the causes of the crash.
15:19
An aerial picture reveals the spread of the debris in the Sinai desert
The Russian airplane crash site on the Sinai Peninsula is pictured in this handout photo satellite image provided by Russian Emergencies Ministry Photo: REUTERS
Wreckage at the site where a Russian aircraft crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula near El Arish city. Photo: Corbis
14:56
Flight Radar data shows the 'final moments' of the doomed airliner
Flight 7K9268 lurched up and down several times in the final moments before it lost contact with the ground, according to data from the Flight Radar 24 tracking site.
The Airbus 321 climbed nearly 3,000 feet in three seconds before falling another 3,000 feet a few seconds later, the altitude data shows. It repeated the abrupt rise and fall a second time before it was lost to radar.
The records from the Sweden-based Flight Radar 24 also show the aircraft rapidly losing speed in its last minute. This data is usually very reliable, but can sometimes be affected by an erroneous message.
Alexander Smirnov, a top official at Metrojet, says its plane dropped 300 kph (186 mph) in speed and 1.5 kilometers (about 5,000 feet) in altitude one minute before it crashed into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
The flight was at a cruising speed of just over 407 knots (468 miles per hour) at the beginning of the data set. Thirty seconds later the speed had fallen to just 62 knots (70 miles per hour) - far too slow for a plane that size to remain airborne.
Dr Stephen Wright, who teaches aviation at the University of Leeds, pointed to the possibility of a "wayward act" which may have caused the sudden end of data transmission - and crash.
"Looking at the numbers, it's confusing to me", he said. "If there was a catastrophic failure due to a wayward act that would cause significant damage and the aircraft could break up in flight."
The sudden climb "would suggest it hit really terrible weather, an updraft, clear air turbulence. Those kinds of weather conditions are usually when you are flying over large expanses of water, and particularly tropical water.
"I don't think that's possible in that location because it's over the desert."
He added that the focus now is on "the information is in the black boxes - those are the items I am interested in now.
"They will be listening to the cockpit recorder for unusual sounds. it records the voices and also the sounds at different locations, and you can triangulate where the sound came from and the type of sound."
14:23
US Director of National Intelligence: no evidence yet of terrorist involvement
Speaking at the Defense One Summit, the US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that there was no direct evidence yet of terrorist involvement in the Russian plane crash.
.jpg)
