At this time, Yevgenia Beryozina felt "empty" and still could not believe that the plane carrying her best friend had crashed into the Egyptian hills and broken into pieces.

Victim Viktoria Sevryukova in Sharm el-Sheikh city, Egypt. Photo: Instagram

At a hotel near Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg, friends and relatives of the victims shared a somber expression.

Yevgenia Beryozina said her friend Viktoria Sevryukova, 24, shared photos on Instagram of her boarding a plane at St Petersburg airport and a beach holiday with friends in Sharm el-Sheikh.

"She was my best friend, she waited for this trip as if I didn't know anything and now she's gone, like she was gone," the Guardian quoted Beryozina as saying.

Beryozina described Sevrukova as a "positive, intelligent and sociable" girl, for whom everything in life "is just beginning".

"It's not fair," Beryozina said.

The two friends even spoke online just before Sevryukova left the Red Sea resort and said she would like to return in the future.

Yulia Zaitseva said two of her friends, Elena Rodina and Alexqander Krotov, a newlywed couple, were also passengers on the crashed flight. Both were 33 years old.

Zaitseva said her friend really wanted to go to Egypt, even though her friend tried to dissuade her and wondered why.

"We have been friends for 20 years. She is a good friend, always willing to share everything with others. Losing a friend like that is like having an arm cut off," she said.

As for Rodina's parents, "their lives were over."

Ella Smirnova, 25, said she went to Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg to pick up her parents returning on flight KGL9268.

"I last spoke to them on the phone when they boarded the plane and then I heard the news," Smirnova choked up. "I will continue to hope until the last minute that they are still alive, but I may never see my parents again."

Olga Ofitserova, whose friend Nadya Laisheva was on board, also said: "We were all shocked. She was so young."

Russian airline Kogalymavia flight KGL9268 disappeared from radar today, 23 minutes after takeoff. The plane was en route from the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg, Russia.

The plane was found broken in two in a mountainous area on the Sinai Peninsula. All 224 people on board, including 217 passengers, were killed.

Relatives of the victims may be taken to the scene in the Sinai peninsula, Tass news agency quoted an official at the crash information center in St Petersburg as saying.

According to VNE