.EgyptAir flight MS804 vanished over the Med at 00.30am GMT after leaving Paris at 9.09pm GMT on Wednesday
- .Airline said contact was lost with plane 10 miles into Egyptian air space about 40 minutes before it was due to land
- .Airbus A320 was flying at 37,000ft and did not make a distress call before it disappeared off radar, officials say
- .There were 56 passengers on board including one Briton, 30 Egyptians, 15 French and one Canadian and 10 crew
- .Major search operation underway as former air crash investigation chief says it is 'very probably an attack'
The EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea with 66 people on board went into a sudden spin and plunged 22,000ft before vanishing off the radar, a Greek minister revealed today.
Flight MS804 came down near the Greek island of Karpathos ten miles into Egyptian airspace at around 00.30am GMT without making a distress call.
Greek defence minister Panos Kammenos said the Airbus A320 made 'sudden swerves' mid-air, lurching 90 degrees to the left then 360 degrees to the right as it fell out of the sky.
The revelation came after a former air accident chief said all the evidence pointed to the plane being targeted in a terrorist attack.
The Airbus A320 left the French capital's Charles De Gaulle Airport at 9.09pm GMT last night before coming down off the Greek island of Karpathos ten miles into Egyptian airspace at around 00.30am GMT. Officials said there was no distress call.
The 56 passengers on board included one Briton, 30 Egyptians, 15 French, one Belgian, one Iraqi, one Kuwaiti, one Saudi Arabian, one Chadian, one Portuguese, one Algerian and one Canadian. There were 10 crew on flight MS804 including three security guards.
Jean-Paul Troadec, the former chief of the BEA national investigation unit, said the lack of a live emergency alert suggested a 'brutal event'.
Vanished: EgyptAir flight MS804 heading from Paris to Cairo is believed to have crashed into the sea after disappearing from radar. There were 66 people on board the Airbus A320 (pictured) that vanished 40 minutes before it was set to land in Egypt early Thursday morning
Relatives of passengers on the missing EgyptAir flight break down as they console each other at Cairo International Airport in Egypt
Devastated: A relative of one of the passengers on board EgyptAir flight MS804 weeps as she makes a phone call (left) and wipes away tears (right) as she waits for news at Charles de Gualle Airport near Paris where the doomed plane took off hours earlier
Despair: An Egyptian woman whose brother was on board the jet reacts as she leaves the EgyptAir service building at Cairo Airport
A woman holds her head in her hand as she waits for more news outside the Egyptair in-flight service building at Cairo International Airport
A radar map shows the plane's path travelling from Paris and then stopping in the Mediterranean Sea before reaching Cairo, where it lost contact with air traffic control
He told Europe 1 radio station in Paris: 'A technical problem, a fire or a failed motor do not cause an instant accident and the team has time to react.
'The team said nothing, they did not react, so it was very probably a brutal event and we can certainly think about an attack.'
His comments came after a merchant ship captain reported seeing a 'flame in the sky' over the Mediterranean.
France called a crisis meeting of top ministers as Prime Minister Manuel Valls said 'no theory can be ruled out' to explain the plane's disappearance.
ISIS has been waging a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces and last October claimed the bombing of a Russian airliner flying home holidaymakers from the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh which killed all 224 people on board.
The flight was the aircraft's fifth of the day, having also flown to the Eritrean capital of Asmara, the Tunisian capital Tunis and Brussels in Belgium.
Devastated relatives wept and comforted each other as they gathered at Charles De Gaulle and Cairo Airports waiting for news of their loved ones.
The British Foreign Office said it was in contact with the family of a British national feared dead.
EgyptAir first reported on the disappearance of the flight, tweeting: 'An informed source at EGYPTAIR stated that Flight no MS804,which departed Paris at 9.09pm (GMT), heading to Cairo has disappeared from radar.'
The director of Greece's Civil Aviation Authority says air traffic controllers were in contact with the pilot of the EgyptAir flight as it passed through Greek airspace.
Konstantinos Lintzerakos said the plane was at 37,000 feet, travelling at 519 mph, and did not report any problems.
Grief: Relatives of missing EgyptAir passengers comfort each other in front of the airliner's office at Cairo International Airport
Relatives and friends of passengers flying on the EgyptAir react as they wait outside the Egyptair in-flight service building at Cairo Airport
Agony: A woman reacts as she waits outside the EgyptAir service building where relatives are being held at Cairo International Airport
Lyzerakos told private Antenna television that controllers tried to make contact with the pilot 10 miles before the flight exited the Greek Flight Information Range (FIR), but the pilot did not respond.
Lyzerakos said controllers continued trying to contact the pilot until 0.39am GMT when the plane disappeared from the radar, around 10 miles into Egyptian airspace.
Egypt's state-run newspaper Al-Ahram quoted an airport official as saying the pilot did not send a distress call and that last contact with the plane was made 10 minutes before it disappeared from radar.
EgyptAir said the plane sent an emergency signal, possibly from an emergency beacon attached to the plane, at 2.26am (GMT) two hours after it vanished.
Shock: A woman reacts as she waits outside the Egyptair in-flight service building where relatives and friends of passengers who were flying in an EgyptAir plane that vanished from radar en route from Paris to Cairo are being held,at Cairo International Airport
Relatives and friends of passengers who were flying in an EgyptAir plane leave the Egyptair in-flight service building at Cairo Airport
Relatives gather at Cairo Airport. Among the 56 passengers on board the plane were 30 Egyptian nationals, 15 French, two Iraqis, one Briton, Belgian, Kuwaiti, Saudi, Sudanese, Chadian, Portuguese, Algerian and a Canadian
In water crashes, an underwater beacon attached to the aircraft's flight recorders starts to emit a signal or ping which helps search and rescue teams to locate the crash and find the black boxes.
A French security source told the Telegraph: 'We cannot rule out the possibility of a terrorist attack.'
Egyptian military aircraft and navy ships were taking part in a search operation off Egypt's Mediterranean coast to locate the debris of the plane, which was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two babies, and 10 crew members.
Greece also joined the search and rescue operation, officials at the Hellenic National Defense General Staff said.
'We cannot rule anything out': Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail talks to reporters at Cairo International Airport. He said it was too early to say whether a technical problem or a terror attack caused the plane to crash
On high alert: A French officer of the Police aux Frontieres (Borders Police) stands guard at Charles de Gaulle airport
Police take up position at Terminal 1 at Charles de Gaulle airport, after the EgyptAir flight vanished from radar
The EgyptAir counter at Charles de Gaulle was empty first thing this morning after reports of the plane's disappearance began to surface
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault offered to send
military planes and boats to join the Egyptian search for wreckage.
'We are at the disposition of the Egyptian authorities with our military capacities, with our planes, our boats to help in the search for this plane,' he said.
He spoke after French President Francois Hollande held an emergency meeting at the Elysee Palace.
Later, the French military said a Falcon surveillance jet monitoring the Mediterranean for migrants had been diverted to help search for the EgyptAir plane.
Military spokesman Colonel Gilles Jaron said the jet is joining the Egypt-led search effort and the French navy may send another plane and a ship to the zone.
Mr Hollande has spoken with Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi by telephone and they agreed to 'closely cooperate to establish the circumstances' in which the EgyptAir flight disappeared.
The government statement cited Hollande as saying he shares the anxiety of families.
Speaking on RTL radio, he said the Paris airport authority has opened a crisis centre to support the families coming to Charles de Gaulle Airport.
He said 'no theory can be ruled out'.
Search and rescue teams have been sent to a specific location believed to be 40 miles from the Egyptian coast.
Greece has also joined the search and rescue operation.
Two aircraft, one C-130 and one early warning aircraft have been dispatched, officials at the Hellenic national defence general staff said.
They said one frigate was also heading to the area, and helicopters are on standby on the southern island of Karpathos for potential rescue or recovery operations.
Ahmed Abdel, the vice-chairman of EgyptAir holding company, said no distress signal had been sent, as far as he knew.
FRENCH SPY CHIEF WARNED COUNTRY WAS 'CLEARLY BEING TARGETED BY ISIS' A WEEK BEFORE EGYPTAIR CRASH
The head of France's internal intelligence agency had warned the country was being 'clearly targeted' by ISIS a week before the Paris to Cairo flight took off.
It has now emerged that Patrick Calvar, the head of France's DGSI agency, told a parliamentary committee on national defence in Paris on May 10 that ISIS was planning 'a new form of attack'.
France was targeted twice last year – with the Charlie Hebdo attack in January and the Paris attacks in November – and the French security forces are on a state of high alert.
Patrick Calvar (pictured), the head of French internal intelligence, warned last week that ISIS was planning new attacks on France
Mr Calvar was quoted in The Local as saying: 'We risk being confronted with a new form of attack: a terrorist campaign characterised by leaving explosive devices in places where big crowds gather, multiplying this type of action to create a climate of panic.'
He made no mention of attacks on aircraft.
But he said he believed France was 'the country most threatened' by ISIS, which is often known as Daesh, and also warned that Al-Qaeda remained a threat and was champing at the bit to 'restore its image' as a major player, especially in the Maghreb and the Arabian peninsula.
He added that there had been no reported problems with the plane when it left Paris.
The captain of the plane, Abdel said, had more than 6,000 flying hours. This includes 2,000 on an A320.
He also said there was no special cargo on board and the airline was not informed about any dangerous objects on board.
As the plane was in Egyptian airspace, their air traffic controllers should have been in contact with the flight team.
However, it does not necessarily mean the plane was over land at the time, as Egyptian air space stretches over the Mediterranean Sea.
According to flight schedules, it was the plane's fifth flight of the day.
Shortly after news of the disappearance broke, the Egyptair website crashed.
The Airbus A320 is a short-to-mid range aircraft and is one of the most commonly used in the world that first entered circulation in 1986.
It has a capacity of 150 passengers and a range of more than 3,000 miles.
An EgyptAir plane was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus in March. A man who admitted to the hijacking and is described by Cypriot authorities as 'psychologically unstable' is in custody in Cyprus.
The incident renewed security concerns months after a Russian passenger plane was blown out of the sky over the Sinai Peninsula.
The Russian plane crashed in Sinai on October 31, killing all 224 people on board. Moscow said it was brought down by an explosive device, and a local branch of the extremist Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for planting it.
In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 1990 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, killing all 217 people aboard.
U.S. investigators filed a final report that concluded its co-pilot switched off the autopilot and pointed the Boeing 767 downward.
But Egyptian officials rejected the notion of suicide altogether, insisting some mechanical reason caused the crash.
EgyptAir has provided the following numbers for those wanting more information or who may have families on board:
080077770000 from any landline in Egypt
+ 202 25989320 outside Egypt or any mobile in Egypt
A closer locator map shows where the flight lost contact with radars around 170 miles from the the Egyptian coast
Hunt for MS804: Several vessels are seen on radar joining the search for the doomed Airbus A320 in the Mediterranean
The airline then tweeted that there were 56 passengers on board and 10 crew members
The airline revealed that the flight had gone missing after posting this Tweet early on Thursday morning
They then confirmed that the flight lost contact with air traffic controllers 10 miles inside Egyptian airspace
No comments:
Post a Comment