Early on Thursday morning, an EgyptAir flight disappeared off the radar on its way from Paris to Cairo, before it had entered the Egyptian airspace. It was carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew members, when it reportedly crashed, as stated by French President, Francois Hollande in a televised press conference.
However, the civil aviation was unable to confirm at an early stage whether the civilian plane had indeed crashed or was there some other reason for its dissappearance.
As per initial reports by the airline, flight MS804, that had taken off from Paris’ Charles De Gaulle airport, was flying at a height of 37,000 feet when it lost contact with the ATC after having travelled at least 16 km into the Egyptian airspace.
This occurred at 3:39am, as monitoring agencies in Greece followed the flight’s movement. Said Defence Minister of Greece, Panos Kammenos, “At 3:39am the course of the aircraft was south and south-east of Kassos and Karpathos [islands] … immediately after it entered Cairo FIR and made swerves and a descent I describe; 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right.”
Nearly 50 minutes later, an emergency alert was received by the Egyptian rescue teams.
The airline stated, “At 4:26am, rescue teams affiliated with the Egyptian armed forces received an SOS message from the emergency unit of the missing plane.” Yet, the army denied having detected the distress sign.
Egypt and Greece authorities launched naval discovery and rescue teams and primitively, Greek officials have found certain pieces of aircraft debris around the Karpathos island in the Mediterranean sea. But they are unsure whether the debris belongs to the missing Airbus 320.
Although the centre of the search operation is the sea, at a distance of 130 knots from Karpathos, Greece is also sending in military air crafts for aerial support.
Moreover, defence authorities are also digging into the reports received from the captain of a merchant ship, who claimed to have come across a ‘flame in the sky’ earlier in the day.
Declared the command of the Greek military, “One C-130 aircraft and an early-warning EMB-145H plane are already operating in the area. Another C-130 plane is on standby at Kasteli airport on the [southern Greek] island of Crete.”
From the records provided by EgyptAir, there were 30 Egyptian, 15 French, 2 Iraqi, 1 British, 1 Belgian, 1 Chadian, 1 Sudanese and 1 Portuguese nationals on board.
In addition, there were three children including one infant. Out of the crew members, three were security personnel. The airport authorities in Paris have reportedly opened support centers for anxious families of the passengers. The first EgyptAir flight after the MS804 has departed from Paris, carrying families of the passengers.
At the same time, after an emergency meeting that was called by French authorities in the early morning hours of Thursday, France has assured that it will aid the search operations in whichever way they can, if the need be. A press release from Elycee Palace read,” The president talked to Egyptian President Sisi about the disappearance of the EgyptAir flight between Paris and Cairo. They agreed to cooperate closely to establish the circumstances of the disappearance as soon as possible. The president shares the anguish of the families affected by this tragedy.”
A meeting that was to take place between Europe’s left-wing politicians and President Hollande was cancelled on Thursday, in the wake of the incident.
Air-safety experts largely believe that contact with radar was lost over the Mediterranean sea. Keith Mackey, who talked extensively to Al Jazeera, said, ” Apparently it was just short of Egyptian air space, so it was likely over the Mediterranean, because the Greek air space joins the Egyptian air space around that area. Egypt air should know exactly where the plane disappeared from radar. That would be the point where you begin your search. And it’s very likely that that point is over the Mediterranean. As daylight comes, no doubt they will have airplanes and ships searching the area. If it crashed, it should not take long to find it in that area. When a plane disappears suddenly like this you certainly cannot rule out terrorism or an explosion on board the aircraft.”
In fact, Russian Intelligence officials believe that it is likely to be case of terrorism more than technical failure. The fact that a British pilot, who was flying withing the same airspace nearly at the same time the MS804 went down, says that climatic conditions were ‘perfect’ reinforces the belief. However, any terrorist group had not claimed responsibility at the time of filing this report.
Repeatedly aggrieved by air-safety mishaps, this is the second time this year that an Egyptian passenger plane has been the victim. In March, an EgyptAir plane was compromised and made to land at Cyprus by a hijacker.
Tags: Egypt Air Egypt Air flight crash EgyptAir flight Paris to Cairo flight
