Missing EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo crashes into Mediterranean
19 May 2016 6:17 PM IST19 May 2016 6:17 PM IST
30 Egyptians, 15 French were among the passsengers on vanished flight no MS804.
An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo with 69 people on board has crashed after it went missing on Thursday morning, Egyptian officials said.- The absence of a distress call suggests that whatever sent the aircraft plummeting into the Mediterranean was both sudden and brief.
- The Egyptian military denied it had received a distress call and Egypt's state-run daily Al-Ahram quoted an airport official as saying the pilot did not send one. The newspaper did not identify the official.
- The airline said the Egyptian military had received an emergency signal from the aircraft, an apparent reference to an Emergency Locator Transmitter, or ELT, a battery powered device designed to automatically give out a signal in the event of a sudden loss of altitude or impact.
- Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said it was too early to say whether a technical problem or a terror attack caused the plane to crash. 'We cannot rule anything out,' he told reporters at Cairo airport.
- 'EGYPTAIR has contacted the concerned authorities and bodies and inspection is underway through the rescue teams,' another tweet in English said.
- There were 59 passengers and 10 crew aboard, according to the airline.
- Further tweets in Arabic said contact was lost at 02:45 Cairo time (0045 GMT), when the plane was just inside Egyptian airspace and at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,000 metres).
- A tweet on the airline's official account said flight MS804 left Paris at 23:09 pm local time (2109 GMT), 'heading to Cairo (and) has disappeared from radar'.
- An Algerian, a Belgian, a Chadian, two Iraqis, a Kuwaiti, a Portuguese, a Saudi and a Sudanese were also on board the flight, EgyptAir said in a statement.
- The flight was carrying 30 Egyptian and 15 French passengers, as well as a Briton and a Canadian, the airline said.
An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo with 69 people on board has crashed after it went missing on Thursday morning, Egyptian officials said.
30 Egyptians, 15 French were among the passsengers on vanished flight no MS804.
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