An EgyptAir plane en route from Paris to Cairo carrying 66 people crashed in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday after plunging 22,000 feet and swerving sharply with Egypt saying the possibility of a terror attack or a technical error could not be ruled out.
"I will use the words ‘the missing plane’ until we find the debris or be certain about what happened," Egypt’s Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi said in a press conference.
"We don’t deny the possibility of a terror attack or a technical error," he said.
EgyptAir Flight 804 from Paris to Cairo disappeared from radar with 66 people on board, the airline said. French President Francois Hollande confirmed that the EgyptAir Airbus A320 had "crashed". "We must ensure that we know everything on the causes of what happened. No hypothesis is ruled out or favoured," he said.
"Whether it was an accident or another hypothesis that everyone has on their mind — a terrorist hypothesis... At this stage we must focus on our solidarity with the families and the search for the causes of the catastrophe," Hollande said.
Paris prosecutor’s office said its accident department had opened an investigation into the incident.
Greece’s Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said the plane fell 22,000 feet and swerved sharply in Egyptian airspace before it disappeared from radar screens.
"The plane carried out a 90-degree turn to the left and a 360-degree turn to the right, falling from 37,000 to 15,000 feet and the signal was lost at around 10,000 feet," Kammenos told a news conference.
"It appears the plane is lost. There are no clear results (from the search) so far," he said.
However, Greek Aviation officials said earlier that air traffic controllers had spoken to the pilot a few minutes earlier and everything had appeared normal. Signs of possible wreckage were found on Thursday off the Greek island of Crete in a search for an EgyptAir flight missing in the Mediterranean, a Greek military spokesman said.
“There have been finds southeast of Crete, inside the Cairo flight information area," general staff spokesman Vassilis Beletsiotis said, adding that an Egyptian C-130 plane had spotted the floating objects, and ships would be sent to investigate. The plane was carrying 56 passengers — including three children — seven crew members and three security personnel. Apart from 30 Egyptians, the plane was carrying 15 French passengers, two Iraqis and one each from Britain, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria and Canada.