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No Aussies On Crashed Russian Plane, DFAT Confirms

No Australians On Doomed Russian Airliner, DFAT Confirms
This image released by the Prime Minister's office shows the tail of a Metrojet plane that crashed in Hassana Egypt, Friday, Oct. 31, 2015. The Russian aircraft carrying 224 people, including 17 children, crashed Saturday in a remote mountainous region in the Sinai Peninsula about 20 minutes after taking off from a Red Sea resort popular with Russian tourists, the Egyptian government said. There were no survivors.(Suliman el-Oteify, Egypt Prime Minister's Office via AP)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
This image released by the Prime Minister's office shows the tail of a Metrojet plane that crashed in Hassana Egypt, Friday, Oct. 31, 2015. The Russian aircraft carrying 224 people, including 17 children, crashed Saturday in a remote mountainous region in the Sinai Peninsula about 20 minutes after taking off from a Red Sea resort popular with Russian tourists, the Egyptian government said. There were no survivors.(Suliman el-Oteify, Egypt Prime Minister's Office via AP)

SYDNEY -- No Australians were on the doomed Russian passenger plane that crashed in Egypt killing all 224 people on board, DFAT says.

A joint Russia and Egypt investigation is currently trying to determine the cause of the crash in the mountainous area of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula after the plane went down less than 30 minutes into its trip from Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt to St Petersburg.

An Islamist group has claimed responsibility for the crash, although experts don't think terrorists have the weapons to shoot down an airliner flying at over 30,000 ft.

DFAT confirmed to The Huffington Post that no Australians were on board the stricken A321.

DFAT said the Australian Embassy in Cairo and the Australian Embassy in Moscow had "been in contact with local authorities following reports a Russian plane crashed in Sinai".

The passengers on board are said to have included 214 Russians and three Ukrainians.

According to media reports, the Airbus A321 was run by Russian airline Kogalymavia and was carrying 200 adult passengers, including 17 children.

A number of airlines have backed away from flying the same route in the wake of the disaster.

There was no SOS call from the plane before it disappeared from radar, authorities have said.

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