Conflicting reports over EgyptAir plane crash debris

Wreckage from the EgyptAir plane carrying 66 people that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday has been found, according to the airline.

EgyptAir tweeted that the Egyptian ministry of civil aviation received a letter from the ministry of foreign affairs confirming the discovery of the wreckage.

However, a senior Greek air safety official said the debris found so far does not belong to an aircraft.

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Egypt’s civil aviation minister Sherif Fathy at a news conference after an EgyptAir plane vanished from radar en route from Paris to Cairo. Photograph: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters

Athanassios Binis, head of Greece’s Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board, told state ERT TV that “an assessment of the finds showed that they do not belong to an aircraft”. He said this has been confirmed by Egyptian authorities, the Associated Press reported.

Earlier, Egypt’s envoy to France said Greek authorities had informed his counterpart in Athens that they had found debris corresponding to EgyptAir’s blue and white colours.

A US review of satellite imagery so far has not produced any signs of an explosion aboard the flight officials from multiple US agencies told Reuters.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the conclusion was the result of a preliminary examination of imagery and cautioned against media reports suggesting the US believed a bomb was responsible for the crash.

The US has not ruled out any possible causes for the crash, including mechanical failure, terrorism or a deliberate act by the pilot or crew, they said.

More likely

Egypt’s aviation minister said earlier it was more likely the plane was brought down by terrorism rather than a technical fault.

Sherif Fathy told a Cairo press conference: “If you analyse the situation properly the possibility of . . . having a terror attack is higher than the possibility of having a technical [failure].”

An Egyptian aircraft spotted two orange objects near the Mediterranean island of Karpathos, which are believed to be from EgyptAir flight MS804, Greek military officials said.

The EgyptAir flight with 66 people on board dropped off radars over the Mediterranean sea about 280 miles off the coast of Egypt. It had been flying from Paris to Cairo.

Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has ordered the civil aviation ministry, the army’s search and rescue centre, the navy, and the air force to take all necessary measures to locate debris from the aircraft.

Egyptian prime minister Sherif Ismail said on Thursday evening it was too early to rule out any explanation, including an attack such as the one blamed for bringing down a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula last year.

Greek defence minister Panos Kammenos said the plane made “sudden swerves” in mid-air and plunged before dropping off radars in the southern Mediterranean.

Greek authorities have mounted a search in the area south of the island of Karpathos without result so far, Mr Kammenos said.

“At 3.39am (0039 GMT) the course of the aircraft was south and southeast of Kassos and Karpathos [islands],” Mr Kammenos told a news conference.

“Immediately after, it entered Cairo FIR [flight information region] and made swerves and a descent I describe; 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right.”

The Airbus plunged from 37,000ft to 15,000ft before vanishing from radar, he added.

Investigators are trying to determine whether an accident or a terrorist attack caused the incident.

The flight left Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport at 11.09pm on Wednesday night and was 10 miles into Egyptian air space when it disappeared.

Ball of fire

Greek media reported that inhabitants of islands in the Aegean Sea saw a ball of fire at the time the aircraft disappeared. Karpathos is between Rhodes and Crete.

EgyptAir said there were 30 Egyptians on board, 15 French, two Iraqis, and one each from Britain, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria, Canada, Belgium, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Britain has offered its support to Egypt over the missing plane with foreign secretary Philip Hammond confirming that one Briton was on board. He has been named as Richard Osman from Wales.

The French government said Mr Hollande spoke with Mr Sisi by telephone, and they agreed to “closely co-operate to establish the circumstances” in which the flight disappeared.

“No hypothesis can be excluded regarding the causes of this disappearance,” French prime minister Manuel Valls said.

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will also assist Egypt “as necessary” in its investigation, a spokesman said.

EgyptAir tweeted that the aircraft had emitted a distress signal “from the plane’s emergency devices less than 10 minutes” before crashing.

But a spokesman for the Egyptian army said, “the Egyptian armed forces confirm they received no distress message from this flight.”

“If the crew sent no distress signal, it means the event was very, very sudden,” Jean-Paul Troadec, the former director of the Bureau d’Enquêtes et Analyses (BEA), which investigates air crashes, told Europe 1 radio station.

“A technical problem such as a fire or an engine failure does not cause an immediate crash, and the crew has time to react. If the crew said nothing, it was probably a sudden event and one thinks of a terrorist attack.”

Security personnel

Islamic fundamentalists have been found working at Roissy airport in the past. Last December, Augustin de Romanet, the head of the Paris airports authority ADP said close to 70 security badges had been withdrawn from the 85,000 people working in secure zones of Roissy and Orly since early 2015 because of “phenomena of radicalisation”.

Three EgyptAir security personnel were also on board as well as seven cabin crew members.

EgyptAir set up a crisis centre for passengers’ families near Cairo Airport and provided doctors and translators.

The crash occurred at a time of political instability in Egypt. The army clashes regularly with jihadists from Islamic State, also known as Isis, in the Sinai desert.

On October 31st 2015, a bomb exploded on an A321 Airbus carrying Russian tourists, killing 224 people. The Egyptian government denied it was a terrorist attack, but eventually confirmed it after Islamic State posted videos showing the bomb, which was put on the plane before it took off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh

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Weather

The weather was clear at the time the plane disappeared, according to Eurocontrol, the European air traffic network. “Our daily weather assessment does not indicate any issues in that area at that time,” it said.

Speed and altitude data from aviation website FlightRadar24.com indicated the plane was cruising at the time it disappeared.

Ahmed Adel, vice-chairman of EgyptAir’s parent company, told CNN the plane had “no snags” arriving in Paris or when it departed for Cairo. It was not carrying freight.

He added: “We did not confirm if there was a distress call. It just lost contact and we lost it on the radar of the air traffic controllers.”

An emergency response room has been set up at the Integrated Operations Control Centre at Cairo Airport.

Additional reporting: Agencies

The airline has provided free contact numbers for families concerned for relatives. From outside Egypt, anyone concerned should call + 202 2598 9320.