Technical failure and human error did not cause Flight 7K9268 to crash, say senior officials at Metrojet.

But if they do know what caused the crash, they are not saying. The Russian Metrojet plane disappeared from radar on Saturday over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula about 20 minutes after it took off. It had reached a high altitude, officials said. It was flying from a vacation town in Egypt to St. Petersburg, Russia.

The plane broke apart in the sky, officials said. All 224 people on board died. Nearly all the passengers were Russian tourists. Three Ukrainians were also among the dead.

The crash was the worst in Russia’s flying history. Emergency crews have recovered both the plane's black boxes. The boxes record flight data and pilot communications. The information on the black boxes has not yet been released.

A top Metrojet official rejected the idea that a 2001 repair to the plane's tail could have caused the crash. However, poor repairs to older planes have caused similar crashes. No technical failures could cause a plane to break up in the air, Metrojet’s deputy director told reporters in Moscow.

The plane wasn't flying, it was falling, Aleksander Smirnov said. Smirnov pointed out that the crew lost total control. No one on the plane called for help. He said the crew did not make a mistake. Smirnov said the only way to explain the crash is some kind of external action.