"The possibility of having a different action on-board, of having a terror attack, it is higher than the possibility of having a technical" failure, Sherif Fathy told a news conference, adding that he still had no information on the plane's fate.
French President Francois Hollande confirmed that the Cairo-bound AirEgypt passenger plane that disappeared from radar screens early Thursday had crashed.
Tweets from the airline, initially specified that the A320 model aircraft carried 59 passengers and 10 crew. That number was later revised to 56 passengers and 10 crew, including one child and two infants.
A source with the Egyptian army said that search and rescue teams from Egypt and Greece had been dispatched to try and locate the plane, which is said to have gone down around 130 nautical miles off the island of Karpathos, north east of Crete. The plane was flying at 11,300 meters (37,000 feet) just inside Egyptian airspace when it went missing over the eastern Mediterranean.
It is unclear what caused the crash and France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls said "no theory can be ruled out."
The airline later disclosed the nationalities of the passengers on board. The majority, 30, were Egyptian, 15 were French and two Iraqi. Additionally there was one passenger each from Britain, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Canada and Algeria.
(i24news.tv with AFP)
19/5/16
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Related:
Crash EgyptAir: des débris de l'avion retrouvés au sud de l'île de Karpathos ...
ReplyDeleteUn bateau de la marine grecque participant aux recherches de l'avion d'Egyptair a retrouvé deux objets flottant au sud de la Crète, a-t-on appris de sources proches du ministère de la Défense.
Des responsables grecs ont annoncé que des morceaux de plastique et deux gilets de sauvetage qui appartiendraient à l'appareil ont été découverts en mer à quelque 400 km au sud de la Crète. Une chaîne de télévision grecque a rapporté de son côté que des débris appartenant à l'A320 de la compagnie EgyptAir avaient été retrouvés jeudi au sud de l'île de Karpathos.
"Des objets ont été localisés dans le sud-est de la Crète par un C-130 égyptien, dans une zone qui, du point de vue, aérien dépend de l'Egypte. Des bateaux seront envoyés sur place" pour vérifier de quoi il s'agit, a indiqué, à l'AFP, le porte-parole de l'armée grecque, Vassilis Beletsiotis.
Recherches aériennes et maritimes
Après l'annonce de la disparition d'un Airbus320 dans la nuit de mercredi à jeudi, les forces armées grecques ont dépêché "à 130 milles de Karpathos une frégate de la marine de guerre, un avion C-130 et un avion militaire EMB-145H" pour participer aux recherches, a indiqué un communiqué du ministère grec de la Défense. "Deux autres hélicoptères Super Puma sont à Karpathos, prêts, eux aussi à participer à ces recherches", a ajouté ce communiqué.....rtbf.be
Des débris qui pourraient être ceux de l'avion d'Egyptair qui s'est abîmé jeudi en Méditerranée avec 66 personnes à bord ont été découverts au large de l'île grecque de Crète par un avion égyptien, a le porte-parole de l'armée grecque, Vassilis Beletsiotis. Le ministre égyptien de l'Aviation civile a par ailleurs estimé que l'hypothèse d'une "attaque terroriste" était "plus probable" que celle d'une défaillance technique...
ReplyDelete"Des objets ont été localisés dans le sud-est de la Crète par un C-130 égyptien, dans une zone qui du point de vue aérien dépend de l'Egypte. Des bateaux seront envoyés sur place" pour vérifier de quoi il s'agit, a indiqué M. Beletsiotis. La télévision publique grecque ERT1 a indiqué de son côté que "des débris ont été découverts à 230 milles marin de la Crète". "La situation peut, et je dis bien +peut+ car je ne veux pas spéculer (...), laisser penser que la probabilité, la possibilité, d'une action à bord, d'une attaque terroriste, est plus élevée que celle d'une défaillance technique", a par ailleurs souligné le ministre égyptien Chérif Fathy lors d'une conférence de presse. "Mais je ne veux pas tirer de conclusions hâtives", a-t-il précisé. (Belga)
Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry "so far cannot confirm that the wreckage of the missing EgyptAir plane has been found", state-run Nile News TV has reported.
ReplyDeleteIt is still unclear what happened to EgyptAir flight MS804, but the news is likely to impact Egypt's tourism industry, the BBC's Sally Nabil in Cairo says...
ReplyDeleteShe adds tourism, a lifeline to the country's economy, has had significant losses since the downing of the Russian jet over the Sinai in October.
Fearing the possibility of further damage to the country's image abroad, officials have been cautious in giving out information about the missing plane, she says.
BBC
Wreckage of the missing EgyptAir flight has been found near Karpathos island, the airliner says.
ReplyDeleteIn a statement, EgyptAir says the confirmation has been made by Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the country's Ministry of Civil Aviation.
Le vice-président de la compagnie aérienne Egyptair a annoncé sur CNN la découverte de l'épave de l'Airbus A320.
ReplyDelete"Nous avons retrouvé l'épave", a déclaré Ahmed Adel à la journaliste de CNN Christiane Amanpour.
Some confusion continues over the wreckage that has been found in the Mediterranean...
ReplyDeleteEarlier, EgyptAir said the debris was confirmed to be from flight MS804.
But now, the head of the Greek air safety authority, Athanassios Binos, has told state ERT TV that the wreckage "does not come from a plane".
He said: "Up to now the analysis of the debris indicates that it does not come from a plane, my Egyptian counterpart also confirmed to me that it was not yet proven that the debris came from the EgyptAir flight when we were last in contact around 1745 GMT."
Officials say all potential debris located so far in the sea has been spotted by Egyptian aircraft.
BBC
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday here expressed his condolences to the countries affected by the crash of the Egyptair passenger jet en route from Paris to Cairo and asked people "not to speculate" on the reasons for the crash...
ReplyDeleteKerry said he was not going to speculate on why the plane went down, adding that "the United States is providing assistance in the search effort and relevant authorities are doing everything they can to try to determine what the facts are of what happened."
EFE
'No indication' of what caused plane crash...
ReplyDeleteFrance's foreign minister said this morning there was "absolutely no indication" what had caused the crash of an EgyptAir flight yesterday, despite Egyptian authorities saying terrorism was the most likely cause.
"We're looking at all possibilities, but none is being favoured over the others because we have absolutely no indication on the causes," Jean-Marc Ayrault told French television.
The French government will meet families of the victims tomorrow in order to "provide all the information we can," Mr Ayrault said.
The search for a missing EgyptAir plane that disappeared over the Mediterranean yesterday is continuing for a second day.....rte.ie
Russian Transport Ministry believes that it is too early to make any conclusions regarding flight safety in Egypt after EgyptAir’s A320 crash in the Southern Mediterranean on Thursday, Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov told the media on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit...
ReplyDelete"As far as yesterday’s disaster is concerned, it was another in a series of tragic events, but it is too early to say anything about the causes that resulted in the Egyptian liner’s crash. Without having sufficient information it would be wrong to pass any judgements concerning Egypt or any other countries and air carriers. We are to have authentic information first and then look at the causes and derive the proper conclusions."
Sokolov said Russia’s aviation authorities maintained a continued dialog with their Egyptian counterparts and that dialogue was constructive...
More:
http://tass.ru/en/politics/877057