St Petersburg, November 3

The first 10 bodies of victims of Saturday’s plane crash over Egypt were identified by their families today, a string of tearful relatives leaving the city crematorium.

Alexei Smirnov of the Russian emergency situations ministry said a total of 140 bodies and more than 100 body parts were delivered to St Petersburg on two government planes yesterday and today and that a third plane is expected to bring more remains later today.

Metrojet’s Airbus A321-200 en route from Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg crashed over the Sinai Peninsula killing all 224 on board. The overwhelming majority of the passengers were Russian holidaymakers flying home.

Mourners continued to come to St Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport today to lay flowers and leave paper planes and soft toys at the arrivals hall. On the outskirts of town, tearful families of the victims were leaving the premises of the crematorium where the identification procedures are taking place.

Confusing reports and theories have emerged as to what could have caused the crash.

Some aviation experts raised the possibility that a bomb on board the Airbus brought it down, while others cited an incident in 2001 when the aircraft grazed the runway with its tail while landing.

Metrojet firmly denied that the crash could have been caused by either equipment failure or crew error.

In Egypt, the US Embassy has instructed its staff not to travel anywhere in the Sinai Peninsula pending the outcome of the investigation into the crash as a “precautionary measure.”

The United States, Germany and Britain all had overflight warnings in place for the Sinai. They advised airlines to avoid flying over the peninsula below 26,000 feet and to avoid the Sharm el-Sheikh airport due to extremist violence and, notably, the use of anti-aircraft weapons. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi insisted today that the security situation in the Sinai Peninsula is under “full control” and that claims by the Islamic State group that it downed the plane were “propaganda” aimed at damaging the country’s image.