ST. PETERSBURG, Russia: A top official at Metrojet, the Russian airline company whose Airbus A320-200 flight crashed Saturday in Egypt, is insisting that a technical fault could not have caused the crash.

Alexander Smirnov, the deputy general director of Metrojet, told reporters Monday in Moscow that the plane lost speed right before the crash. He said the cause of the crash “could only have been a mechanical impact on the plane” in the air.

Russian investigators say the plane broke up at high altitude but have so far refrained from naming possible causes.

The Metrojet crashed Saturday morning 23 minutes after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 on board, the vast majority of them Russians.

On Monday, Russia started bringing home the bodies of the victims from the plane crash.

A government plane brought bodies of 144 passengers to St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport early on Monday morning.

A Russian official has said forensic experts have begun identifying the bodies of the 224 victims of the Metrojet plane crash in Egypt.

Yulia Shoigu, chief of the emergency situations ministry’s psychological service, made the comment Monday in televised remarks. Russia has sent over 100 emergency workers and aviation experts to help Egypt examine the crash site in the Sinai Peninsula. French, German and Airbus aviation teams are also helping the investigation.

A Russian government plane on Monday brought 140 bodies of plane crash victims to St. Petersburg, where most of the passengers were from. Another plane will be taking more crash victims’ bodies to St. Petersburg from Cairo late Monday night.

Russia’s emergency situations minister Vladimir Puchkov says the search for the bodies of victims of the plane crash in Egypt will wrap up in a day.