EgyptAir Flight MS 804 from Paris to Cairo disappeared from radar with 66 people on board. The Airbus A320 was flying at 37,000 feet when it disappeared and last contact was attempted by Greek air traffic controllers tried to reach the plane 10 miles before it left the country’s airspace but received no response.
Flight MS804 left Charles de Gaulle Airport at 11:09 p.m. Paris time (5:09 p.m. ET) and vanished over the Mediterranean Sea. What happened to the plane for the moment remains a mystery, it swerved ‘90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right” before plunging into the Mediterranean, a Greek official says. The last contact with the plane came when it was 173 miles (280 kilometers) from the Egyptian coast.
The first time that a distress signal was detected in the vicinity where the flight disappeared from radar 2 hours later, but it could have come from another vessel.
The idea of a terrorist group shooting the plan out of the sky or causing the plane crash by planting a passenger was quickly rumored. But for the moment there does not seem to be enough known to support that theory and no group has taken credit for bringing the flight down.
French President Francois Hollande told a press conference that the plane had crashed, but said it was too soon to speculate as to the cause.
“No hypothesis can be ruled out,” he said.
Airbus — the maker of the plane — said in a statement that it regretted to confirm that “an A320 operated by Egyptair was lost” over the Mediterranean Sea.
French and Egyptian officials stressed they were closely cooperating to determine what caused the crash. Radar showed no adverse weather in the area at the time of the jet’s disappearance.
For the moment, Egyptian and Greek authorities are focusing their search efforts in the Mediterranean Sea.
