Obama: It's 'certainly possible' a bomb was aboard downed Metrojet flight

(Image credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 6 November 2015

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."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

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.

Explore More

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.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox