An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo crashed into the Mediterranean yesterday with 66 people on board, prompting an investigation into whether it was mechanical failure or a bomb.
There were no immediate reports of the discovery of any debris in the area of sea between the Greek islands and the Egyptian coast where the plane vanished from radar screens.
However, French President Francois Hollande confirmed that the plane had “crashed” and the Paris prosecutor’s office said its accident department had opened an investigation.
Photo: AFP
Egyptian Minister of Civil Aviation Sherif Fathy said he could not rule out either terrorism or a technical problem.
“I don’t deny the hypothesis of a terrorist attack or something technical. It is too early,” he told a news conference, adding that no wreckage had been found.
The Airbus A320 fell 6,705m and swerved sharply twice in Egyptian airspace before it disappeared from radar screens, Greek Minister of National Defense Panos Kammenos told a news conference.
Egypt and Greece said they had dispatched aircraft and naval vessels on a search mission and they were expected to be joined by French teams.
Fifteen French citizens were among the 26 foreign passengers on the EgyptAir flight, who also included a Briton and a Canadian.
Both France and Egypt have come under attack by Islamic State group militants in the past year and Hollande promised a comprehensive investigation into the cause of the crash as suspicions swiftly focused on a bomb.
“We must ensure that we know everything on the causes of what happened. No hypothesis is ruled out or favored,” Hollande said in a televised address.
“Whether it was an accident or another hypothesis that everyone has on their mind — a terrorist hypothesis ... at this stage we must focus on our solidarity with the families and the search for the causes of the catastrophe.”
The militant group has been waging a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces and in October last year claimed the bombing of a Russian airliner flying home vacationers from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which killed all 224 people on board.
France earlier called a crisis meeting of top ministers as French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said “no theory can be ruled out” to explain the plane’s disappearance.
EgyptAir said contact was lost with the flight about 280km north of the Egyptian coast.
A Greek aviation source said that the flight had disappeared from Greek radar at about 12:29am GMT.
“It crashed around 130 nautical miles [240km] off the island of Karpathos,” the source told reporters, referring to an island northeast of Crete.
Hellenic Civil Aviation Governor Konstantinos Litzerakos said the pilot had mentioned no problem in the last communication before the plane disappeared.
“The flight controllers contacted the pilot [with the plane] at a height of 37,000 feet [near Athens]... He did not mention a problem,” Litzerakos told Greece’s Antenna TV.
“We tracked the entire process from the plane’s entry [into Greek airspace] to its exit, it does not appear to deviate at all from the coordinates we gave,” he said.
Neither the Hellenic Coast Guard nor the navy could confirm reports that a passing ship had seen “a ball of fire in the sky.”
Litzerakos said if there had been an explosion, any debris would have scattered across a wide distance.
EgyptAir Holding Co vice president Ahmed Adel also said there had been “no distress call” before the plane vanished.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sharif Ismail told reporters “we can’t preclude or confirm anything yet,” when asked if the flight could have been attacked.
The passengers also included two Iraqis and one citizen each from Algeria, Belgium, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, as well as 30 Egyptians, the airline said. They included a boy and two babies. Seven crew members and three security men were also on board.
EgyptAir said the plane had been manufactured in 2003. Airbus said it had clocked up 48,000 flight hours.
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