EgyptAir wreckage shows heat damage, smoke

Egyptian investigators say black box indicates fumes in the lavatory and onboard equipment

By AP 30 June 2016, 1:03 am

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This picture posted Saturday, May 21, 2016 on the official Facebook page of the Egyptian military's spokesman shows part of a plane chair from EgyptAir flight 804. Search crews found floating human remains, luggage and seats from the doomed EgyptAir jetliner Friday but face a potentially more complex task in locating bigger pieces of wreckage and the black boxes vital to determining why the plane plunged into the Mediterranean. Arabic reads: “Part of plane chair.” (Egyptian Armed Forces via AP)

CAIRO — Egyptian investigators said Wednesday that wreckage from the EgyptAir flight that crashed in May shows “signs of damage because of high temperature” and that a flight data recorder indicates there was smoke on board.

The flight from Paris to Cairo crashed into the Mediterranean on May 19 for reasons that remain unknown. The pilots made no distress call, and no militant group has claimed to have brought down the plane.

The Egyptian investigating committee said in a statement that a recovered flight data recorder, one of the plane’s black boxes, showed that there was smoke in the lavatory and onboard equipment.

The second black box, a cockpit recorder, was damaged in the crash and is being repaired in Paris. The wreckage was recovered from the Mediterranean Sea floor earlier this month. The bulk of the wreckage is believed to be at a depth of about 3,000 meters (9,800 feet).

The committee said deep ocean search teams are still working to find and recover human remains.

French authorities opened a manslaughter inquiry on Monday, but said there is no evidence so far to link the crash to terrorism.

EgyptAir Flight 804 disappeared from radar about 2:45 a.m. local time on May 19 between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast.

Radar data showed the aircraft had been cruising normally in clear skies before it turned 90 degrees left, then a full 360 degrees to the right as it plummeted from 38,000 feet (11,582 meters) to 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). It disappeared when it was at an altitude of about 10,000 feet (3,048 meters).