Flight MS804 had vanished with 66 people on board Thursday, on its way to Cairo from Paris.
Following the disappearance of a passenger flight with 56 passengers and 10 crew members early in the morning on Thursday, both Egypt and Greece had launched search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean sea, where the flight was believed to have lost contact. As per information received from the Egyptian army spokesman Brig Gen Mohammed Samir, early on Friday, officials came across debris from the plan that has now been confirmed as crashed. Along with pieces of the aircraft, the army has also found belongings of the passengers, at a distance of 290km from Alexandria.
The flight, which departed from Paris at around 23:09 local time, was expected to arrive in Cairo by 03:15 local time. When it was almost 10-15 miles within Egypt’s air information region, the pilot and air controller made contact and the plane was set to enter Egyptian airspace. The air controller then tried to make contact with the craft at 02:27 Cairo time, when it was on the verge of entering Egyptian airspace, but there was no response despite repeated attempts. Then, two minutes later, it vanished from the radar, with 56 passengers, 7 crew members and 3 security officers.
Source: BBC
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt has conveyed his grief, as he talked about ‘utmost sadness and regret‘ in his confirmation speech. At the same time, military units of Greece, France and UK, who were also part of the operations near Karpathos island have not commented on the discovery. the search is now going to concentrate on the craft’s flight recorders, since the Greek radar shows the flight swiveling twice in the air and then plunging 25,000ft downwards, before finally crashing into the sea.
However, the reason for the crash remains unarticulated and French air accident officials and technical consultants from Airbus are joining the investigations. On that note, Egyptian authorities believe that it the plane crash was an act of terrorism more than a case of technical failure. Egyptian aviation minister Sherif Fathi said,” Let’s not try to jump to the side that is trying to identify this as a technical failure – on the contrary. If you analyse the situation properly, the possibility of having a different action, or having a terror attack, is higher than the possibility of having a technical [fault].”
Source: AFP via Hindustan Times
In fact, France has even initiated an inquiry into whether security was compromised at the CDG airport in Paris. After the November terrorist strikes in Paris, several airport workers’ security clearance was suspended for suspected terrorist connections. A lawyer representing these employees, Eric Moulet, said that terrorist groups had tried to reach out to airport staff. Said he,” That is clear. There are people who are being radicalised in some of the trade unions, etc. The authorities have their work cut out with this problem.”
In a similar case, a Airbus 321 operated by Russian airline Metrojet exploded within Egyptian airspace (Sinai Peninsula) last October, killing all 224 people. Responsibility was taken by Sinai Province for the attack, which is an affiliate of ISIS and said that it had covertly sent a bomb on board.
In that light, French President Francois Hollande has said that they can only come to a conclusion after they can find evidence. He stated,”We will draw conclusions when we have the truth about what happened…whether it was an accident, or whether it was – and it’s something that is on our minds – terrorism.”
While families of the people on the flight grieve their loss, authorities are still trying to come to a complete and chronologically sound explanation for the crash.
Source (Story, Images and Bytes): BBC
Tags: EgyptAir EgyptAir flight crash
