Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday ordered Russian emergency officials to fly immediately to the wreckage of a Russian plane that crashed earlier in the day in Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
Authorities say the plane crashed 23 minutes into its flight while carrying 217 passengers and 7 crew members from the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh, a popular tourist resort for Russians, back to St. Petersburg.
A statement from Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation said military search and rescue teams found the wreckage of the passenger jet in the Hassana area south of the city of Al-Arish, an area in northern Sinai where Egyptian security forces are fighting a burgeoning Islamic militant insurgency led by a local affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group.