UPDATED: Egyptian Plane Crashes In Mediterranean Sea
MEP: An EgyptAir flight with 66 passengers and crew on board from Paris to Cairo has crashed into the Mediterranean Sea, officials said.
Flight MS804, an EgyptAir Airbus A320 en route from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Cairo, has disappeared from radar with 66 people on board.
EgyptAir says the plane’s emergency devices – possibly an emergency locator transmitter or beacon – sent a signal that was received at 4.26am local time, two hours after the last radar contact.
Jean-Paul Troadec, the former chief of France’s air accident investigation unit, the BEA, said the disappearance suggested a “brutal event” and was “almost certainly” caused by “an attack
In water crashes, an underwater locator beacon attached to the aircraft’s flight recorders starts to emit a signal or ping. This helps the search and rescue teams to locate the boxes, and the location of the crash.
According to Egypt’s Aviation Ministry, the passengers included 30 Egyptians, 15 French and one Briton.
The airline said the flight sent a distress message before vanishing from radar screens that was detected by the military.
The plane took off from Paris Airport at 11.09pm and went missing at 2.45am on route to Cairo International.
Families of passengers and the Egyptian prime minister rushed to Cairo International Airport shortly after dawn while the Egyptian and Greek military scrambled aircraft and boats to search for the plane.
The development is being updated…
