EgyptAir jet crash was 'almost certainly a terror attack' says air accident chief after flight from Paris to Cairo carrying 66 people including one Briton vanishes over the Mediterranean
- 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'
An
EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo that crashed into the Mediterranean
Sea with 66 people on board was very likely brought down by a terror
attack, experts said today.
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. Officials
said there was no distress call.
There
were 56 passengers on board including 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'.
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 captain on board a merchant ship reported seeing a 'flame in the sky' over the Mediterranean.
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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
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
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
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