Greece says debris found in search for EgyptAir plane
2 orange items believed to be from missing flight found near Mediteranean island of Crete
Signs of possible wreckage were found 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.
A Greek military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations, said an Egyptian search plane had located two orange items believed to be from the missing flight. One of the items was rectangular-shaped.
The official said the items were found 370 kilometers (230 miles) south-southeast of the island of Crete but still within the Egyptian air traffic control area.
Speaking before news of the find came through Egypt’s aviation minister said he could not rule out that an attack or a technical failure brought down the flight over the Mediterranean.
“I don’t deny the hypothesis of a terrorist attack or something technical. It is too early,” Sherif Fathy told a news conference.
“I have no information that wreckage has been found for now,” he said, adding that he could not even confirm whether the plane had crashed.
Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister says "it's too early to make scenarios" https://t.co/omm1wNyyhu
— Sky News (@SkyNews) May 19, 2016
EgyptAir Flight 804 crashed into the sea off the southern Greek island of Karpathos while in Egyptian airspace, a Greece aviation source told AFP.
The official said the last communication with the pilot was three minutes before the plane disappeared, and that there had been no distress call.
The flight was lost from radar at 2:45 a.m. local time when it was flying at 37,000 feet, the airline said. It said the Airbus A320 had vanished 16 kilometers (10 miles) after it entered Egyptian airspace, around 280 kilometers (175 miles) off the country’s coastline north of the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria.
The plane was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two babies, and 10 crew members. The pilot had more than 6,000 flight hours.
Those on board, according to EgyptAir, included 15 French passengers, 30 Egyptians, two Iraqis, one Briton, one Kuwaiti, one Saudi, one Sudanese, one Chadian, one Portuguese, one Belgian, one Algerian and one Canadian.
