British holiday jet had to 'evade' military missile

A British Thomson flight with 189 passengers on board was reportedly forced to avoid a military missile when landing at the Egyptian Sharm el-Sheikh airport in August.

According to one report, the missile came within 300 meters of the flight packed with British holidaymakers.

Both the airline and the British Department for Transport confirmed that an incident had taken place on August 23.

A spokesman for the DfT said: “We investigated the reported incident at the time and concluded that it was not a targeted attack and was likely to be connected to routine exercises being conducted by the Egyptian military in the area at the time.”

A spokesman for Thomson added: “Upon landing into Sharm el-Sheikh, an initial assessment was conducted and the event was immediately reported to the UK Department for Transport (DfT) in line with established protocol.

“The DfT conducted a full investigation in conjunction with other UK Government experts."

“After reviewing the details of the case, the investigation concluded that there was no cause for concern and it was safe to continue our flying program to Sharm el-Sheikh.”

• Investigators, meanwhile, said they have still not determined why a Russian airliner broke up over Egypt's Sinai killing 224 people, the probe's chief said Saturday, amid growing suspicions the cause was a bomb.

"Initial observations... do not allow for identifying the origin of the in-flight break-up" of the Airbus A-321 last Saturday 23 minutes and 14 seconds after it took off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Ayman el-Mokkadem said.

"A noise was heard in the last second of the recording by the cockpit voice recorder" and "a spectral analysis will be done to determine the origin of this noise", he told a press conference....
  i24news.tv
7/11/15
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Related:

• A British passenger jet came close to being hit by a rocket as it came in to land at Egypt's Sharm al-Sheikh in August, British media reported on Saturday (Nov 7), although the UK government said it concluded the incident was not a deliberate attack...

• The Egyptian head of the international team investigating the Russian Metrojet plane crash in Sinai has said it is too early to say what caused it...

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