Egypt's air accident chief said on Saturday that a missing passenger plane on its way to Russia had safely left Egyptian airspace and made contact with Turkish air traffic control.

"The ... Russian airline had told us that the Russian plane we lost contact with is safe and that it has contacted Turkish air traffic control and is passing through Turkish skies now," Ayman al-Muqaddam, the head of the central air traffic accident authority in Egypt, said in a statement.

The civilian airliner carrying 212 people to Russia was reportedly lost contact with Egyptian air traffic control shortly after it took off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to head to Russia.(Reuters)