The airliner broke into pieces in midair, Russia's state-run media quoted an aviation official as saying, but there were no additional details.
"Disintegration of the fuselage took place in the air, and the fragments are scattered around a large area (about 20 square kilometers)," Viktor Sorochenko, executive director of Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee, told journalists, according to reports.
Questions swirl over Russian plane crash in Sinai, Egypt - CNN.com