An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo, with 66 people on board, has crashed in the southern Mediterranean. The Egyptian military said they discovered wreckage and passengers’ baggage from the plane, and reports emerged, saying that smoke was detected in the jet’s bathroom.
READ MORE: EgyptAir flight 804 disappears en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 on board
23 May 2016
The black box from the crashed EgyptAir jet is to be analyzed in Egypt if the device is found intact, according to Hani Galal, air accident investigator, who spoke with Egyptian broadcaster CBC. He noted that if the device is found damaged, it will be sent for analysis abroad.
The head of Egypt's National Navigation Services Company, Ihab Mohi El-Din, told CBC news that Egyptian officials were able to track the EgyptAir plane for one minute before it crashed, but had been unable to communicate with the crew.
22 May 2016
The Daily Mail cited sources claiming that locator pings emitted by MS804's black boxes may have been discovered on the Mediterranean seabed.
US intelligence source told CBS News that the black boxes have been located by their pings, adding that recovery efforts were under way.
The crashed EgyptAir Arbus A320 was reportedly vandalized by aviation workers at Cairo Airport about two years ago, the New York Times reported, citing three EgyptAir security officials. “We will bring this plane down” was scratched in Arabic on its underside.
The vandals were said to be Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers, as they played on the plane’s registration number, SU-GCC, to scribble comments insulting Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
EgyptAir security officials maintain that the message was related to Egypt’s internal political turmoil, and not a literal threat from a militant group. The airline subsequently introduced additional security measures, including the addition of unarmed security guards aboard the planes, three of which reportedly died in the MS804 crash.
A preliminary report on the Flight 804 crash will be released in a month, Al-Ahram reported, citing Egypt’s chief investigator, Ayman al-Mukaddam.
21 May 2016
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has had a telephone conversation with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shukri, to convey the deepest sorrow over the loss of the Flight 804.
"Lavrov has offered his sincerest condolences over the crash of EgyptAir's airliner and death of the Egyptian nationals," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
A source at the Civil Aviation Ministry has denied reports that the black boxes have been found. The source told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm that if the black boxes were found, they would notify the public "immediately."
CBS claims that the flight recorders of EgyptAir Flight 804 may have been located close to the area where human remains and debris from the aircraft were found earlier. The report is yet to be confirmed.
The military has released the first photos of recovered debris from the crashed EgyptAir A320, including a life jacket and other parts of the aircraft bearing the airline's logo. The photos have been posted on the Egyptian Armed Forces' official Facebook page.
France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) has confirmed that the aircraft's smoke detection systems were sending alert messages, AFP reported. Previous unconfirmed reports on smoke alerts cited data obtained from an Egyptian source, which had access to an automatic system aboard the plane called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS).
The Egyptian military says it has identified a search area to recover EgyptAir Arbus A320's flight recorders, Al Ahram newspaper reports. "The area is three to four nautical miles (5.6-7.4km) away from the crash site," a source close to the investigation told the newspaper.
He added that the flight recorders are being searched for by Egyptian Navy submarines and other vessels. Recovering the "black boxes" is the top priority, even before finding other debris, the source said.
Egyptian investigators have asked French authorities to release all communications between the pilots of the EgyptAir Flight 804 and French air traffic controllers, according to Egypt’s chief investigator Ayman al-Mukaddam.
Mukaddam said that his team has already met with French delegates, who were sent to assist with the probe, adding that other countries who lost their citizens in the tragedy could potentially also become involved with the investigation process. Greece has already expressed interest in being included, he added.
20 May 2016
Unconfirmed flight data reportedly reveals that smoke alerts had been activated before EgyptAir Flight 804 crashed. The data was obtained from an Egyptian source that had access to an automatic system aboard the plane called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), CNN said.
Other reports said that a fire had broken out aboard the plane.
None of the passengers on the flight were on European or US terrorist watchlists, three sources within European security agencies have told AP.
Egypt says that it has found body parts belonging to the passengers of the crashed aircraft.
"The Egyptian navy was able to retrieve more debris from the plane, some of the passengers' belongings, human remains, and plane seats. The search is ongoing," said a statement from the civil aviation ministry.
EgyptAir says that currently a 40 mile radius is being searched for debris, but that the area may expand if necessary.
An image taken by European satellite Sentinel-1A at 1600 GMT Thursday spotted a possible oil slick in the eastern Mediterranean, where the EgyptAir Flight 804 disappeared, the European Space Agency said Friday. A second image taken at 0400 GMT on Friday suggested that the slick had drifted by about 5km.
The agency said it shared information related to the image to the relevant authorities. It added, however, there was no guarantee that the slick was from the EgyptAir plane. It said another satellite, Sentinel-2A, would pass over the same area on May 22, according to Reuters.
Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry will set up an inquiry to probe into EgyptAir Flight 804 crash over the Mediterranean, RIA Novosti reported. "Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy has issued a decree establishing the commission to investigate the EgyptAir plane crash, chaired by Ayman al-Mukaddam [the chief Egyptian investigator]," the ministry said in a statement.
Three French officials and an Airbus technical expert have arrived in Cairo to help with the investigation into the crash of the EgyptAir plane, local newspaper al-Ahram reported. US officials are also taking part in the probe, as the plane was fitted with American engines.
Britain has dispatched the RFA Lyme Bay, an auxiliary landing ship dock, to assist with the search operation conducted by Egypt, France and Greece in the Mediterranean, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon announced. Britain also deployed an S-130 Hercules transport plane from an airbase in Cyprus to help with the effort.
Egyptian Navy ships searching for EgyptAir crash site found what appears to be wreckage from the missing plane, Egyptian state television reported. The report said they found some of the passengers’ belongings.
While conflicting reports as to the discovery of MS804 wreckage continue to come in, a source explained to Xinhua that confusion over EgyptAir’s press release, in which the airline seemed to confirm that debris from the plane had been found, had been the result of a mistake in translating Arabic.
“In the Arabic version, we only spoke about the possibility that the objects found might belong to the airplane,” an unnamed source within the airline stated.
The statement in Arabic hinted at the “possibility of finding parts of the missing airplane,” and was wrongly translated into English to imply that the missing plane’s wreckage had actually been found, the source said. The statement was also posted on the airline’s FB page, prompting even more “confusion.”
19 May 2016
EgyptAir has recanted its statement affirming that Flight 804 debris had been found in the search area south of the island of Crete. Discovery of wreckage had been confirmed earlier by the Egyptian foreign ministry and Greek authorities.
Ahmed Adel, EgyptAir vice president, dismissed earlier reports that wreckage of the missing plane had been found by Greek authorities.
“We stand corrected on finding the wreckage, because what we identified is not a part of our plane. So the search and rescue is still going on,” Adel said in an interview with CNN.
EgyptAir had said in an earlier statement that Egypt’s civil aviation minister had received an official letter from the minister of foreign affairs confirming that debris from the aircraft had been found.
A US review of satellite imagery detected no signs of explosion on board the crashed Egyptair flight, officials from several US agencies told Reuters on condition of anonymity, adding that this conclusion was based only on a preliminary examination that hadn’t ruled out any possible causes for the tragedy, including mechanical failure, a terrorist attack, or a deliberate act by a member of the crew.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has ordered Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry and armed forces, including the army’s search and rescue center, the navy, and the air force, to take all the necessary measures to find the wreckage of the crashed Egyptair flight. He has also ordered a committee formed by the civil aviation ministry to launch an investigation into the cause of the catastrophe, Reuters reports, citing a statement issued by the President’s Office.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev expressed his condolences to his Egyptian counterpart, Sharif Ismail, following the crash of the Egyptair flight, a statement published on the Russian government’s official website says.
“On behalf of the government of the Russian Federation and in my personal capacity, I express my sincere condolences over the Egyptair plane crash over the Mediterranean Sea,” Medvedev said in his statement, adding that Russians share the pain and grief of the Egyptian people.
Two Canadians were confirmed to be on board the crashed Egyptair flight and Canadian authorities are still working to verify if any more of its citizens were on the plane, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, Stephane Dion, said in a statement.
Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry has confirmed that Greek authorities have found “floating materials” that are likely to be debris and lifejackets from the missing plane, Reuters reports.
EgyptAir Vice President Ahmed Adel has also said that the company’s search teams have found wreckage from the missing flight. “We have found the wreckage,” Adel said in an interview with CNN.
Greece has informed Egypt that white and blue wreckage has been found in the search area which could be debris from the missing Egyptair plane, Egyptian Ambassador to France Ehab Badawy told journalists.
“All I will say is that our embassy in Athens told us that it was contacted by Greek authorities who signaled that they found white and blue debris corresponding to EgyptAir’s colours,” Badawy told BFM television.
“I can’t confirm it is the debris, but it would be reasonable to think it is the debris of this plane,” he added as cited by Reuters.
Five countries are now assisting Egypt in the search operation for the missing aircraft, including Greece, the UK, France, Cyprus and Italy, TASS reports.
RT’s Anastasia Churkina, who is at Charles de Gaulle Airport, says police have briefly cordoned off a boarding area. An officer said there was an abandoned piece of luggage that they were investigating.
EgyptAir said on Twitter that it cannot confirm the information concerning the locating of the missing plane’s wreckage.
The US Navy says it has sent a P-3 Orion long-range plane to lend assistance in the search operation for the missing EgyptAir flight.
Greece is ready to send a submarine to the search area of the missing EgyptAir flight, AP reports, citing Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos. Kammenos said that his country has a submarine on standby which is currently participating in a NATO exercise about 100 miles (160km) away from the search area. Greece has already deployed a navy frigate, two military transport planes and a radar plane to the presumed crash site, while Egypt has sent a C-130 military transport plane and two F-16s, AP reports. Earlier, a French Navy spokesman said that submarines are necessary for searching and retrieving the missing plane’s flight recorders and offered France’s assistance in that matter.
Egypt will lead an international committee that will investigate the incident with the missing plane, and will also include France, Ayman al-Moqadem, the Egyptian head of the Air Accidents Investigation Department, told journalists. Moqadem added that Greece and the UK also offered assistance in the investigation but did not specify if their offers were accepted.
An Egyptian ship captain has claimed on Facebook that he has found “a life jacket and debris from a chair on the plane,” and posted pictures of objects floating in the water as confirmation of his words.
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will assist Egypt "as necessary" in its investigation into the disappearance of an EgyptAir jet from Paris to Cairo over the Mediterranean south of Greece on Thursday, a spokesman said.
Under United Nations rules, a country is allowed to assist in an aircraft accident probe if its engines were manufactured in that state. The EgyptAir plane, an Airbus A320, was equipped with International Aero Engines, a consortium led by US-based Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp. The NTSB is in communication with Pratt & Whitney on the issue, the spokesman said in a statement emailed to Reuters.
"We stand by to offer assistance," the spokesman said. (Reuters)
An Air France flight with about 30 relatives of the passengers of the missing EgyptAir aircraft has left Paris Charles de Gaulle airport for Cairo and is due to arrive in the Egyptian capital by Thursday night, French BMF TV reports. It will be followed by an EgyptAir flight that may also carry relatives of the passengers of the missing plane.
Two airplane lifejackets were found by the Greek authorities searching for the missing EgyptAir flight in the area, where several pieces of plastic were previously discovered, Reuters reports citing Greek state TV. The life vests appear to be from the disappeared aircraft.
British RAF landing ship Mounts Bay has set off to join the search operation for the missing EgyptAir flight, the BBC reports. UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has also offered to deploy a Hercules aircraft to the search area.
US President Barack Obama has been briefed on the situation with the missing EgyptAir flight by Lisa Monaco, adviser for homeland security and counter-terrorism, the White House said in a statement. Obama also asked to be updated on the developments concerning the incident and offered assistance in the investigation, Reuters reports citing deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz.
Greek defense sources have confirmed the discovery of the debris from the missing EgyptAir flight, AFP reports.
“There have been finds southeast of Crete, inside the Cairo flight information area,” Greece’s general staff spokesman, Vassilis Beletsiotis, told AFP.
A British citizen was on board the missing EgyptAir flight, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told journalists, adding that the UK had offered assistance to Egypt but had not received any requests for support so far.
U.S. President Barack Obama received a briefing on the missing EgyptAir plane by Lisa Monaco, adviser for homeland security and counter-terrorism, the White House said on Thursday.
Obama asked to be updated throughout the day on the situation, in which a jet carrying 66 passengers and crew disappeared from radar over the Mediterranean. He directed administration officials to reach out to their international counterparts to offer support and assistance, deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said in a statement. (Reuters)
The crew of the missing flight were threatened days before the incident, claims Sharif Mehera, a former EgyptAir pilot, who describes himself as a close friend of the captain of the Airbus A320 that disappeared.
He told (LINK) LifeNews that someone wrote a menacing message on the hull of one of the planes.
The message was in Arabic, and read: “the next murder will be the flight number SU-GCC,” Mehera said, adding that it was exactly the flight number of the missing plane and that all security services were aware of this incident.
A Greek frigate taking part in the search for the missing flight discovered two large pieces of plastic in white and red floating in the sea 230 miles (370km) south of the Greek island of Crete. They were found close to the area where a transponder signal was emitted earlier, Reuters reports, citing Greek defense sources. Greek state TV ERT reported similar information, saying that two “orange-coloured” objects were located in the same area and that they are debris from the missing plane.
There are no known security issues with any of the passengers of the missing flight, the Egyptian aviation minister said during the press conference, adding that further checks are underway. According to the minister, the missing plane is more likely to have been brought down by a terrorist attack than a technical failure.
“If you analyze the situation properly the possibility of having a terror attack is higher than the possibility of having a technical [problem]," he told journalists.
Joint Egyptian and Greek search efforts for the missing EgyptAir flight are focused around the Greek island of Karpathos and are now expanding, Egypt’s Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy told journalists during a press conference.
France's lower house of parliament has definitively approved a two-month extension of the state of emergency that was declared after the deadly November 13 attacks in Paris.
The measure is aimed at covering the June 10-July 10 European Championship soccer tournament and the July 2-July 24 Tour de France. It expands police powers to put people under house arrest and allows authorities to forbid the movement of people and vehicles at specific times and places.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve justified the measure by the "unprecedented context of terrorist risk." (AP)
Media reports claiming that the Egyptian military received a distress call from the EgyptAir plane prior to its disappearance are unofficial, Egyptian Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy said at a media conference. He said he could not comment on the allegation.
The minister said the Airbus A320 was in good technical condition and had passed all the necessary tests. So far no possible cause of the incident was ruled out, Fathy said.
The EgyptAir incident was most likely a terrorist attack, believes the head of the Russian security service, the FSB, Aleksandr Bortnikov. He called on all parties involved in the investigation “to take timely measures to identify the individuals linked to this horrible act.”
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has chaired a meeting of the country’s National Security Council, which discussed the loss of the EgyptAir plane. The council said Egypt would continue searching for the plane’s debris in collaboration with France and Greece, and that the government should provide all possible assistance to families of the passengers and crew.
An EgyptAir flight will shortly fly from Paris to Cairo, carrying family members of the passengers of missing flight 804. A special crisis center was set at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport by the French authorities.
The pilot of the missing plane was in good humor during his last communication with the Greek traffic controllers, the Greek civilian aviation agency told RIA Novosti.
“At 02:28 it was flying towards the [Egyptian] Flight Information Region [FIR] and was informed by the controller that it was leaving the Athens FIR. The pilot was in good humor and thanked us in Greek,” the agency said.
The next attempt to communicate with the plane at 03:27 to confirm that it had switched to Cairo’s zone of responsibility failed, it added.
Just before going missing the Egyptian plane was flying at 37,000 feet in Egypt airspace and then made “sudden swerves”, Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said.
"At 03:39 a.m. the course of the aircraft was south and south-east of Kassos and Karpathos (islands). Immediately after it entered Cairo FIR and made swerves and a descent I describe; 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right," he told a news conference.
French President Francois Hollande said the missing EgyptAir plane crashed and that “no hypothesis” could be ruled out on the causes of the incident. Speaking in a televised address, he offered “solidarity” with the families of those on board.
"It could be a terrorist hypothesis but at this stage we should express our solidarity to the families and to find out the cause of the catastrophe," Hollande said.
The search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean continues, but has so far produced no results, the Greek authorities said.
"Absolutely nothing has been found so far," a senior Greek coastguard official told Reuters.
“There’s a strong possibility of an explosion on board from a bomb or a suicide bomber,” Jean-Paul Troadec, former president of the French Air Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA), told Europe 1.
“If the crew didn’t send an alert signal, it’s because what happened was very sudden. A problem with an engine or a technical fault, would not produce an immediate accident. In this case, the crew did not react, which makes us think of a bomb,” he said.
A fast-developing technical incident or a missile attack would also explain the facts, he added, saying that those scenarios are less plausible.
Egyptian airlines have seen some high-profile security breaches in recent months, including the bomb planted on a Russian plane and a hijacking which ended with an Egyptian plane being forced to land in Cyprus, said Desmond Ross, a former pilot and aircraft safety controller.
“We’ve got major security issues in these regions, as you well know,” he told RT, adding that France has some security issues as well.
“French authorities have been, as it was, weeding out the employees at various Paris airports [and] were taking people out of security sensitive positions,” he said.
EgyptAir reportedly ramped up security for three of its flight destinations lately after receiving a tip about possible sabotage, TASS said.
Greek authorities have declared a 40-mile (64km) no-fly zone over their part of the airspace in the vicinity of the search zone in Southern Mediterranean, a Greek diplomat said in Cairo. The zone was established, based on the location of the last signal coming from the missing plane.
The French military has redeployed a Falcon surveillance jet, which was previously monitoring the Mediterranean for migrant-smuggling vessels, to take part in the search for the missing EgyptAir plane.
Egypt's foreign ministry exchanged condolences with France on Thursday over what it called the "fall" of an EgyptAir flight carrying 66 people from Paris to Cairo.
The statement was the first official admission that those on board were likely to have died. (Reuters)
The disappearance of the EgyptAir plane didn’t affect the schedule of French airlines, Air France told TASS. No Air France passengers returned their tickets after the news of the missing aircraft broke, a spokesperson for the airline said.
If the missing EgyptAir plane did crash, its wreckage is likely to be found in a matter of hours, Richard Woodward, an experienced captain, told RT.
“The Mediterranean is a very busy air road, so there a lot of shipping in the area,” he explained. “Finding the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder etc. may take some time, because that will not sank to the bottom of the sea. The Mediterranean is not very deep, but it is still deep enough to cause them some effort involved in recovering those pieces of wreckage.”
The missing Airbus A320 entered service in November 2003 and had accumulated approximately 48,000 flight hours by the time it went missing on Thursday, Airbus said in a statement.
The company pledged full cooperation to the French Investigation Agency BEA and authorities charged with investigating the incident under ICAO rules.
The statement said flight MS804 went missing at 00:30 GMT rather than at 00:45 GMT, as initially reported.
The missing EgyptAir plane crew failed to respond to a call from Greek air traffic control three minutes before going missing from radar, Greek civil aviation chief Konstantinos Lintzerakos said.
There were no weather problems in the vicinity and at the time when the EgyptAir flight went missing, said Eurocontrol, the European air traffic network manager.
"There is no significant impact on traffic at present, although there is search and rescue activity in the area," it said in a statement.
Moscow has expressed its condolences over the apparent loss of the EgyptAir flight en route from France to Egypt, a Kremlin spokesman said.
Three of the crewmembers on the missing plane were security officers, French Transport Minister Alain Vidalies said, adding that it was “the usual practice.” They were in addition to two cockpit crew and five cabin crew on board.
Greek media reports of a flash seen over the Mediterranean, reportedly spotted by a civilian boat, could not be verified, Greek broadcaster ERD said.
A terrorist attack is not ruled out as a possible cause of the EgyptAir flight MS804’s disappearance, Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said at a media conference in Cairo. He warned that there was not enough information to substantiate any scenario at the moment.
"Search operations are ongoing at this time for the airplane in the area where it is believed to have lost contact," he said.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is to chair a national security council meeting on Thursday, Reuters reported.
The Egyptian Army denied earlier reports that it had detected a distress signal from the missing plane.
France will deploy its aircraft and a ships to help with the search and rescue operation in the south Mediterranean, the French Foreign Ministry said.
"Everything must be done to find the plane, that's why we're in contact with the Egyptian authorities... we are mobilizing and ready to send our military means, planes and boats, to search for this plane," Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters after a ministerial meeting with French President Francois Hollande.
The French Foreign Ministry confirmed that there were 15 French citizens among the 56 passengers on board the missing Egyptian plane.
The missing Airbus A320-233 experienced an engine problem in 2013, SkyNews Arabia cited an Egyptian civil aviation source as saying. The plane was scheduled to fly from Cairo to Istanbul, but had to return for an emergency landing.
"We are in close contact with the Egyptian authorities, both civil and military,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told RTL radio. “The Egyptian authorities have already sent air reconnaissance teams to the site, and France is ready to help with the search if the Egyptian authorities ask, of course."
He added: "At this stage, no theory can be ruled out regarding the causes of the disappearance.”
Egyptian military unit received distress signal from EgyptAir MS804 plane at 0226 GMT – Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry.
EgyptAir Flight MS804 went off the radar two minutes after leaving Greek airspace, the Greek civil aviation chief said.
EgyptAir has released information about the nationalities of the passengers on the plane. The airline said there were 30 Egyptians, 15 French and two Iraqi citizens on board, along with one person from each of Britain, Belgium, Portugal, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Chad, Algeria and Canada.
Citizens of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, France, Britain and Iraq were on board the missing flight MS804, SkyNews Arabia reported.
The Greek Defense Ministry has deployed a frigate and two military aircraft to the area where the EgyptAir plane went missing to take part in a search and rescue mission, it reported.
The missing EgyptAir flight MS804 most likely fell into the sea, officials from the airline and the Egyptian civil aviation authority said.
The local newspaper Ahram reported that the last contact with the pilot was about 10 minutes before the plane disappeared from radar screens, and that there was no distress call.
The vice-chairman of EgyptAir holding company, Ahmed Abdel, said that there were only 66 people aboard, including 56 passengers, 3 security personnel, 2 cockpit crew and 5 cabin crew members, and not 69, as claimed earlier
Abdel said that there were “no recorded snags coming out of Cairo,” the Guardian reported.
He also noted that the captain of the plane has over 6,000 flying hours.
Rescue efforts to find the missing flight are underway, and there are reports that Egyptian rescue teams are working with their Greek counterparts.
The plane went off the radar at 2:45 am Cairo time, when the plane was at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,300 meters) and approximately 10 miles (16 kilometers) within Egyptian airspace, EgyptAir tweeted.
Flight MS804 departed Charles de Gaulle Airport at 11:09 pm on Wednesday Paris time and was expected to arrive in Cairo by 3 am on Thursday. A direct flight usually takes just over four hours.
An EgyptAir flight carrying at least 59 passengers and 10 crew members disappears off the radar after departing from Paris and on its way to Cairo, according to the airline.