News / France

All theories ‘being examined’ in EgyptAir crash: France

Saturday, 21 May 2016 1:28 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 21 May 2016 1:28 PM ]

This picture taken on May 19, 2016 shows an Egyptair Airbus A330 from Cairo taxiing at the Roissy-Charles De Gaulle airport near Paris following its landing a few hours after the MS804 Egyptair flight crashed into the Mediterranean. © AFP

The French foreign minister says all possibilities about the cause of the EgyptAir crash are being studied after smoke was detected in the cabin of the Airbus A320 minutes before it disappeared.

“At this time… all theories are being examined and none is favored,” Jean-Marc Ayrault said Saturday after meeting with relatives of passengers who were aboard the doomed plane that suddenly disappeared from radar on Thursday on a routine flight between Paris and Cairo.

According to new details emerging shortly after human remains, luggage and seats were found by searchers, smoke alerts were triggered inside the cabin of the aircraft minutes before it crashed in the Mediterranean with 66 people on board.

A report released by the Aviation Herald website said smoke had been detected in the toilet and the aircraft’s electric system prior to the crash. The flight data were received through the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS). The ACARS is a digital system that transmits short messages between aircraft and ground stations.

Human remains, luggage and airline debris were retrieved Friday from the sea, around 290 kilometers north of the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria. The main body of the plane and the two “black boxes” which show fight data and cockpit transmissions have not been located yet.

The picture uploaded on the official Facebook page of the Egyptian military spokesperson on May 21, 2016 and taken from an undisclosed location reportedly shows some debris that the search teams found in the sea after the EgyptAir Airbus A320 crashed in the Mediterranean on May, 19, 2016. © AFP

A European Space Agency (ESA) satellite on Thursday spotted an oil slick in the area where the flight had disappeared, but the Netherlands-based organization said there was “no guarantee that the slick is from the missing aircraft”.

The aircraft had lost contact with radar early Thursday above the Mediterranean Sea about 280 kilometers from the Egyptian seacoast at 02:30 am (local time) as the flight was expected to arrive in Cairo Airport at 03:15 am (local time).

Egyptian officials suggested that terrorism was a more likely cause for the disappearance than technical failure, but others cautioned that it was premature to make that judgment.

The loss of the flight was the second civilian aviation disaster to hit Egypt in the past seven months.

Last October, the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group claimed responsibility for bombing an A321 plane belonging to Russia’s Metrojet that crashed into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on its way from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, killing 224 passengers and crew.

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