Bodies of 179 Russian plane crash victims flown home

Cairo: The bodies of 179 victims of a Russian plane crash, which killed 224 people in Egypt, were flown back home Sunday night, state media reported.

Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov accompanied the bodies aboard a Russian plane that left Cairo airport for Moscow.

The bodies were brought by 72 ambulances to the airport from a main mortuary in Cairo after DNA samples had been taken from them for identification.

Sokolov was in Egypt to follow up on search for the victims of the Airbus A321 crash that occurred in Sinai on Saturday.

 An Egyptian-Russian search team returned late Sunday to Cairo from the crash site in a rugged area in central Sinai.

They are expected go back to the site on Monday to resume search for remains of other victims, who were mostly Russians.

Earlier on Sunday, Egyptian government said that 187 bodies had been transported to Cairo from Sinai.

The Russian airliner crashed shortly after departing the Red Sea resort town of Sharm Al Shaikh. The cause of the tragedy is not known yet.

Egypt and Russia are conducting joint investigations, which Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi said could take months before final findings are made.