EgyptAir Flight 804: Airline official says debris not from plane [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

EgyptAir Flight 804: Airline official says debris not from plane

Global May 20, 2016

The search for EgyptAirFlight 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.

Missing EgyptAir MS804

"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.

What happened? Four scenarios

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

-- 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.

News Courtesy: www.cnn.com