Egypt Navy Says Flight ‘Debris Found’, EgyptAir Tweets Condolences

Egypt’s navy said earlier on Friday that they had found wreckage and passenger possessions in the Mediterranean from the EgyptAir flight that disappeared from radars half an hour before its scheduled landing in Cairo on Thursday.

The country’s military and national carrier EgyptAir have confirmed that debris and personal belongings have been found some 290km off the coast of Alexandria. The airline also tweeted condolences to the families of the victims.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi also expressed his condolences today to the families of victims.

Search and rescue missions from Greece, Egypt and France were scouring the eastern Mediterranean near the Greek island of Karpathos in efforts to locate Flight MS804, which was carrying 66 people.

The 2003 Airbus A320, which had departed from the Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris on Thursday morning heading to Cairo, came in routine contact with air controllers in Athens and minutes later disappeared from the radars in clear weather some 10 miles into Egyptian airspace.

Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos told a press conference that the plane made two sharp turns before vanishing from the radars.

Egypt now says the plane was more likely to have been brought down by a “terrorist attack” rather than a technical fault. The plane’s captain, Mohamed Said Shoukair, did not send a distress signal.

Kammenos told a press conference earlier on Friday that Greek authorities cannot speculate on the causes of the crash and stressed that the EgyptAir flight did not deviate from its course while in Greek airspace.

Joint investigations are currently underway.