LONDON: A British passenger jet came close to being hit by a rocket as it came in to land at Egypt’s Sharm Al-Sheikh in August, British media reported on Saturday, although the UK government said it concluded the incident was not a deliberate attack.

The pilot of the Thomson flight from London to Egypt took evasive action after spotting the missile coming toward the plane as it flew to the Red Sea resort, the Daily Mail reported.

The rocket was believed to have come within 1,000 ft (300 m) of the plane, an unnamed source told the paper.

Britain confirmed the incident had occurred but played down its significance as investigators try to pin down the cause of a Russian passenger plane crash over Egypt’s Sinai. Western officials believe it was brought down by a bomb after taking off from Sharm Al-Sheikh on Oct. 31.

“We investigated the reported incident at the time and concluded that it was not a targeted attack and was likely to be connected to routine exercises being conducted by the Egyptian military in the area at the time,” the Department for Transport said in a statement.

A government source also said the rocket was not thought to have come as close as the report suggested.

This week British Prime Minister David Cameron halted flights to and from the Egyptian resort on concerns that the Russian jet had been downed by a bomb.

Flights resumed on Friday to bring home stranded tourists in the resort, where about 20,000 Britons were on holiday.

However, the operation descended into chaos on Friday when only eight of the 29 flights left Sharm Al-Sheikh because Egypt said Britain’s insistence that passengers returned without all their luggage meant the airport was unable to cope.

No emergency evacuation of stranded Russians

In Moscow, a tourism official said the number of Russians stranded in Egypt is bigger than earlier thought — more than 79,000, instead of 45,000 — but there will be no emergency evacuation, with tourists set to return home when they want.

“Nearly 80,000 tourists are in Egypt,” Irina Tyurina, a spokeswoman for the Russian Union of the Tourism Industry, told AFP after a government meeting.

“There will be no evacuation,” she said, adding that most were staying in Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada.

Russia halted flights to Egypt on Friday amid growing fears that the Russian jet downed last weekend over the Sinai peninsula with 224 people on board was bombed.

Empty planes are being sent to Egypt to bring Russian holidaymakers home, but they will be able to return at their own pace, official said.

“Tourists will be returning from Egypt to Russia when they planned to,” said Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who is in a charge of a task force established to oversee the return of tourists.

“Most people left for two weeks — our usual holiday tour lasts two weeks — therefore they will return in about two weeks,” he said in televised comments late Friday.

Russia followed in Britain’s footsteps, saying that holidaymakers will be returning home without their hold luggage, which will be brought back to the country separately.

The emergencies ministry will send on Saturday two planes, one to Hurghada and another one to Sharm el-Sheikh, to pick up tourists’ luggage, a spokeswoman, Tatyana Zholobova, told AFP.

The number of Russian tourists traveling abroad has gone down significantly due to a plunge in the value of the ruble on the back of falling oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.

But affordable destinations such as Egypt are still popular with Russian holidaymakers, especially during school holidays.

Russians, who have bought tour packages to Egypt, are now offered to travel to Turkey instead, tourism officials said.

“A tour operator is right now offering to fly to Turkey under the same conditions which were stipulated in a holiday package for Egypt,” one tourist, Andrei Kuznetsov, said in televised remarks.