Rep. Peter King said Friday that he was "99 percent certain" that a bomb downed the Russian jet in Egypt last Saturday after reports that investigations of the black box recordings from the Metrojet airliner indicated that an explosive device ignited aboard the flight.
"I've said for the last several days I thought it was a bomb," the New York Republican told Wolf Blitzer on
CNN. "Our intelligence agencies have not yet confirmed about the black box. I have no reason to doubt that."
"And just from what I've been aware of over the last several days, it was clear that it was very, very likely that it was a bomb. Some sort of explosive device."
"There's just too much pointing in that direction," King said. "The area itself, which has so many Islamic terrorists, the fact that there is not the type of control that there should be — the jihadist presence. The way it came down."
"To me, I was 99 percent certain that this was a bomb."
King, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, also said that any tightened security efforts at airports in the United States should include better screening of TSA agents and other airport workers because of past experiences with criminal activity.
CNN reported Friday that European investigators who analyzed the two flight recorders from the Airbus A321-200 were categorically saying that the crash was not an accident.
The investigators told CNN that the cockpit voice recorder showed an explosion and that the flight-data recorder confirmed that the blast was not accidental because there was no sign of mechanical malfunction during the initial part of the flight.
King said that the heavy jihadist presence in the region — particularly the Islamic State — was clear evidence that a bomb had made its way onto the Russian jetliner.
"In that area, you have ISIS, but you also have ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula," he said. "And ISIS in the Sinai — I think could be capable of this."
"I would be pointing toward ISIS or its affiliate, ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula."
While Putin and Egyptian officials have yet to declare the crash as an act of terrorism, King pointed to President Barack Obama's comments Thursday about a possible terrorist link to the crash as proof that "whether it's official or not, that's certainly the way almost all of them are leaning, strongly leaning."
"When the president says it, any president, you have to read more into it," he told Blitzer. "He would not have been talking about terrorism like that, I don't believe, unless his people told him it was most likely terrorism.
"That showed that he was sending a signal to the American people and to the world that there is a growing, growing belief as of last night that this was a bomb."
"And I would say that if these reports about the black box are true, then to me that makes it virtually conclusive."
Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday cancelled all flights to Egypt from Russia.
The U.S. has not done so, though U.S. Homeland Security Secretary
announced new security efforts involving commercial flights bound for the United States from certain overseas airports in the Mideast.
Flights travel directly from Cairo to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
King told Blitzer that "I'm not comfortable" with those flights not being suspended and called for any enhanced security at U.S. airports.
"I'm not saying we should shut them all down yet," he added. "I think we should look at whether or not we should."
"I've read different reports about how sophisticated this device may have been. Whether they're accurate or not, if this is as sophisticated as some people think it was, then just the fact that we're swabbing people or the fact that we're looking more carefully may not be enough."
"We should consider exactly how we're going to approach this, because this is a new dimension in the war that ISIS and Islamist terrorists have against the U.S. — against the West … all of us who don't believe in the jihad philosophy."
Those tightened efforts should include better screening and training of Transportation Security Agency workers and other airport employees, King said.
"We've had a number of cases over the last several years not of just terrorist activities — but of drugs being smuggled, counterfeit money being smuggled, weapons being smuggled from one American airport to another."
"If gangsters and criminals can do that, certainly terrorists could as well," he added. "I think we have to increase our surveillance, our security among airport workers at American airports."
"We have to start going more on the offense against ISIS, not just to protect our airports and protect ourselves," he added. "This shows all the more reason why the United States, Russia — everyone involved here — has to go much more on the offense against ISIS."