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EgyptAir Flight 804: Airline official says debris not from plane
| CNN | - |
Cairo
(CNN) The search for EgyptAir Flight 804 is continuing after reports
that the plane's wreckage had been found turned out to be false.
EgyptAir Flight 804: Airline official says debris not from plane
Story highlights
- Debris was first identified as plane wreckage, but when searchers got closer they realized their mistake
- British passenger had dual citizenship, Australia says
Cairo (CNN)The search for EgyptAir Flight 804 is continuing after reports that the plane's wreckage had been found turned out to be false.
When
searchers got close to debris found in the Mediterranean Sea they
realized it didn't come from the missing airliner, EgyptAir's Vice
Chairman Ahmed Adel told CNN.
The Airbus A320,
which had 66 people on board, disappeared early Thursday as it flew
from Paris to Cairo. Earlier, Adel told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that
the plane's wreckage had been found.
"We
stand corrected on finding the wreckage because what we identified is
not a part of our plane. So the search and rescue is still going on,"
Adel told CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper."
Adel
said EgyptAir is not involved in the search and is getting its
information from Greek authorities and the Egyptian military, but he
didn't give details on why the debris found in the water was said to be
from the plane or how that information was gathered.
The plane was carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew and security officers.
Earlier,
a spokesman for Greece's Hellenic National Defense general staff had
said an Egyptian search aircraft spotted two floating objects 210
nautical miles southeast of Crete. It's unclear whether those objects
were part of the wreckage described by Adel.
Speculation has centered on the possibility of a terrorist attack.
"It's
very difficult to come up with a scenario that jibes with some sort of
catastrophic failure. (The evidence so far) leads us down the road to a
deliberate act," CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien said.
Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sharif Fathi said technical failures and terror each are possible explanations.
"But
if you analyze this situation properly, the possibility of having a
different action aboard, of having a terror attack, is higher than
having a technical problem," Fathi said.
Latest developments
--
The pilots have been identified to CNN as Mohamed Said Shoukair and
Mohamed Mamdouh Ahmed Assem, according to an official close to the
investigation and a security source. The sources said Shoukair was the
captain and Assem was the first officer. The head flight attendant was
identified as Mirvat Zaharia Zaki Mohamed.
-- Maintenance checks on the plane had been done on time and "no snags were reported," Adel told Amanpour.
--
Checks of the passenger manifest have so far resulted in no hits on
terror watch lists, officials with knowledge of the investigation told
CNN.
Search for EgyptAir Flight 804
Countries involved: Egypt, Greece, France, United States, United Kingdom, Cyprus, Italy
Vessels they're using: Military aircraft and boats
Location: Mediterranean Sea, southeast of Greece's Karpathos island
Vessels they're using: Military aircraft and boats
Location: Mediterranean Sea, southeast of Greece's Karpathos island
--
U.S. government officials are operating on an initial theory that the
plane was taken down by a bomb, two U.S. officials told CNN. Officials
said the theory could change, with one senior administration official
cautioning it is not yet supported by a "smoking gun."
-- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to express his condolences.
--
The airplane "swerved and then plunged" before descending into the
Mediterranean, Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos told reporters.
--
Greek controllers tried to reach EgyptAir Flight 804 about 10 miles
before it left the country's airspace and for about 90 seconds after and
received no response, the head of the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority
told Greek broadcaster ANT1 TV.
What happened
8 photos: Distraught relatives of EgyptAir MS804 passengers await news
At
2:27 a.m., shortly before the aircraft was scheduled to exit Greek
airspace, controllers tried to reach the pilots to transfer control to
Cairo authorities. Despite repeated attempts, they received no response,
the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority said.
Radar soon lost the plane's signal, just after it entered Egyptian airspace, the authority said.
At
some point before dropping off radar, the plane swerved 90 degrees to
the left, and then made a 360-degree turn to the right before plunging
first to 15,000 feet, then 10,000 feet, Kammenos, the Greek defense
minister, told reporters.
Weather conditions were clear at the time, CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri said.
More about the flight
The flight left Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris at 11:09 p.m. Wednesday for what should have been about a 3½-hour flight.
The
passengers were predominantly Egyptian -- 30 in all -- but also aboard
were 15 French citizens, including an infant; two Iraqis; and one from
each of the following: Britain, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan,
Chad, Portugal, Algeria and Canada, according to Fathi, the Egyptian
aviation minister.
The government of Canada said two of its citizens were on the plane. The reason for the discrepancy wasn't clear.
Australian
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the British passenger also was an
Australian citizen. It is unclear whether any other passengers were dual
citizens.
The Airbus A320 had
routine maintenance checks in Cairo before it left for Paris, an airline
official said. Earlier Wednesday, the jet was also in Eritrea and
Tunisia, data from flight tracking websites show.
There was no special cargo on the flight and no notification of any dangerous goods aboard, according to Adel of EgyptAir.
The
plane has been part of EgyptAir's fleet since November 2003, according
to Adel. It had about 48,000 flight hours. The plane's captain had about
6,000 flying hours, he said.
A
distress signal was detected at 4:26 a.m. -- about two hours after the
jet vanished -- in the general vicinity where it disappeared, Adel
said. He said the distress signal could have come from another vessel in
the Mediterranean. Egyptian armed forces said they had not received a
distress call.
The search
The
area being searched is about 130 nautical miles south-southeast of
Karpathos, the Greek Hellenic National Defense General Staff said.
The
Greek military was sending two aircraft, two helicopters and a frigate
to the area where the plane was last seen on radar. The U.S. Navy
deployed a P-3 Orion aircraft to assist in the search. Egypt's military
was also involved, and France said it had tasked a surveillance plane to
help.
A storm system could affect conditions in the region as early as Friday afternoon, Javaheri said.
As crews searched, somber relatives gathered in Cairo and Paris airports, seeking word on their loved ones.
They
were taken to special centers at both airports, where translators and
psychiatric support awaited. In Cairo's airport, dozens of relatives
paced anxiously in a building set aside for families. Some shouted at
photographers taking pictures of them, while others berated officials
over the perceived lack of information.
Analysts weigh in
CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest:
"Planes just do not fall out of the sky for no reason, particularly at
37,000 feet," he said, noting the aircraft vanished while cruising --
the safest part of the journey.
David Soucie, a CNN aviation safety analyst:
The first priority is to find survivors. "Find the plane, find the
people, see if there are folks that could be rescued," he said. "Safety
people are looking at safety issues, maintenance people looking at
maintenance issues, security people looking at security issues."
CNN aviation analyst Les Abend:
He said there are three possibilities: an explosion, something
nefarious or a stall situation. "We're in the very early stages of the
investigation. Any good accident investigator will tell you, just put on
the brakes a little bit and let this thing unfold. The 360-degree turn,
that seems very abrupt. It's not something I would do in any major
emergency unless I was losing control of the aircraft," he said.
Egypt's aviation incidents
Egypt is no stranger to aviation disasters.
In March, an "unstable" man diverted an EgyptAir flight from Alexandria to Cyprus. The suspected hijacker later released all hostages and surrendered.
Last year, a Russian plane exploded midair over the Sinai Peninsula,
killing all 224 people aboard. Egyptian officials initially downplayed
Islamic militants' claim that they brought down the jet, saying
technical failure caused the crash.
And in October 1999, an EgyptAir passenger jet made a rapid descent, plunging almost 14,000 feet in 36 seconds.
The Boeing 767, en route to Cairo from New York, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the Massachusetts coast.
Its debris was later found, but speculation remains on the cause of the crash that killed all 217 people on board.
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