Update, May 20:
EgyptAir has released a statement confirming that wreckage of the missing MS804 flight had been found.The debris was discovered near the Greek island of Karpathos, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a letter to the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation.The statement said: “EgyptAir sincerely conveys its deepest sorrow to the families and friends of the passengers onboard Flight MS804.“Family members of passengers and crew have been already informed and we extend our deepest sympathies to those affected the Egyptian Investigation Team in co-operation with the Greek counterpart are still searching for other remains of the missing plane.”The announcement comes as Egypt’s envoy to France said Greek authorities had informed his counterpart in Athens that they had found blue and white debris as part of its search for a missing EgyptAir plane.“All I will say is that our embassy in Athens told us that it was contacted by Greek authorities who signalled that they found white and blue debris corresponding to EgyptAir’s colours,” Ehab 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 said.
National carrier EgyptAir said a plane carrying 69 passengers and crew on a flight from Paris to Cairo had gone missing on Thursday, disappearing from radar over the Mediterranean sea.
“An official source at EgyptAir stated that Flight MS804, which departed Paris at 23:09 (CEST), heading to Cairo has disappeared from radar,” the airline said on its official Twitter account.
Later Tweets by EgyptAir said the plane, which was travelling at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,280m), disappeared soon after entering Egyptian airspace. The aircraft was carrying 59 passengers and 10 crew.
According to flightradar24.com, the plane was an Airbus A320 and its last known position was above the Mediterranean sea. he Egyptian state newspaper Ahram, said the crew had made no distress call, and that the last contact was 10 minutes before the plane vanished.
Ehab Mohy el-Deen, the head of Egypt’s air navigation authority, said that Greek air traffic controllers notified their Egyptian counterparts that they had lost contact with the plane. “They did not radio for help or lose altitude. They just vanished,” he said.
He added that it was too early to speculate on the cause of the disappearance or the plane’s fate, “but this is not normal, of course.”
An Airbus A321 operated by Russia’s Metrojet crashed in the Sinai in 31 October 2015, killing all 224 people on board. Russia and Western governments have said the plane was likely brought down by a bomb, and the Islamic State militant group said it had smuggled an explosive on board.
Reports were in January that an EgyptAir mechanic, whose cousin joined Islamic State in Syria, is suspected of planting the bomb, according to sources familiar with the matter.
In March, an EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked and forced to land in Cyprus by a man with what authorities said was a fake suicide belt. He was arrested after giving himself up .
Here,Jean-Paul Troadec, the former chief of France’s air accident investigation unit said Flight MS804 / the airbus A320’s disappearance suggested a “brutal event”and was “almost certainly” caused by “an attack”.
