Russian airline whose jet crashed in Egypt says three other A321s have passed checks

MOSCOW: Russia's Kogalymavia, whose plane crashed in Egypt at the weekend, said on Thursday that three of its four remaining A321 jets had passed unscheduled safety checks by Russia's state transport agency and were fit to fly.

The firm, whose planes fly under the Metrojet brand, had said earlier on Thursday that it had stopped operating its four remaining A321 jets after the crash on Saturday which killed 224 people.

But Oksana Golovina of THC Holding, the company which owns Kogalymavia, said later that Rostransnadzor, the state transport agency, had now given three of its A321s the all clear.

"The third plane passed checks at 12.05 Moscow time today," said Golovina. "The fourth is now undergoing technical checks in Istanbul and will be checked shortly after it returns to Russia." The Kremlin said earlier on Thursday it believed any theories about what caused the crash were speculation and that only the official investigation could determine what happened.