Obama: It's 'certainly possible' a bomb was aboard downed Metrojet flight
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
On Thursday, President Obama said it is "certainly possible that there was a bomb on board" the Russian Metrojet airplane that crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula Saturday, killing all 224 passengers and crew.
The president's comments came after Egypt and Russia both discounted concerns expressed by U.S. and British officials about a bomb being planted on the plane by Islamic State, with Egypt's Civil Aviation Minister Hossam Kamal saying in a statement that "the investigation team does not have any evidence or data confirming this hypothesis," and a Kremlin spokesman saying the West was pushing the idea there was a bomb onboard because of "geopolitical resistance to Russia's actions in Syria."
During an interview with KIRO Radio, Obama said he doesn't think anyone knows what exactly caused the plane to break up mid-air. "Whenever you've got a plane crash, first of all, you've got the tragedy, you've got making sure there's an investigation on site," he said. "I think there is a possibility that there was a bomb on board. And we are taking that very seriously.... We're going to spend a lot of time making sure our own investigators and our own intelligence community figures out exactly what's going on before we make any definitive pronouncements."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
