By Toqa Ezzidin
The British Daily Mail report on a UK tour jet that avoided an Egyptian military launched air missile above Sharm El-Sheikh in August is “inaccurate”, said foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zaid in a statement to MENA on Saturday.
Abu Zaid added that the claims are “ridiculous” and that the incident that was referred to was related to a routine training exercise that was taking place few kilometres away from Sharm Al-Sheikh airport. He added that “air-missiles” were not used during the training.
He also said the two governments knew about the preparations and trainings, and the plane was not in any danger whatsoever, because all planes were informed about the training exercises before taking-off.
According to the Daily Mail, a British plane had to manoeuvre away from a missile launched by the Egyptian military 1,000 feet away, while it approached Sharm El-Sheikh last August.
The report claimed that the pilot of the Thomson flight spotted the missile and avoided it.
Citing an anonymous governmental source, the Daily Mail reported that the first officer in the plane was in charge at the time the missile approached, and the pilot was in the cockpit when he recognised the missile and immediately ordered that “the flight turn to the left to avoid it”.
A UK department of transport spokesperson also told The Independent newspaper that this was most likely an ordinary training exercise and the British plane was not targeted.
The Daily Mail report was published a week after a Russian Metrojet plane crashed in North Sinai, for unknown reasons.
