An EgyptAir plane with 66 people aboard crashed during a flight from Paris to Cairo early Thursday, according to reports.
The airline confirmed that Flight MS804 had disappeared from radar, but did not offer information about its fate.
Maps from FlightRadar24.com show the flight taking off from Charles de
Gaulle Airport before vanishing in the Mediterranean on approach to
Egypt.
The plane, said to be carrying 10 crew and 56 passengers including two
babies and a child, normally arrives in Cairo shortly before 3 a.m.
local time.
EgyptAir said that contact was lost with the plane, which was flying at
37,000 feet, around 2:30 a.m. when it had just entered Egyptian airspace
and was 175 miles from the country's coast.
The plane was "on the borderline" of the flight information region
administered in Athens and the one based in Cairo, Hellenic National
Defense General Staff spokesman Vasilios Beletsiotis told the Daily
News.
A civil aviation official said the vessel probably crashed into the sea, according to Reuters.
Airbus said in a statement that it "regrets to confirm the loss" of the plane.
As of 11:30 a.m. in Cairo, the Egyptian military was still searching
for the 2003 model Airbus A320 with assistance from Greece and a French
surveillance jet that was already in the region.
Vasilios told the News that two planes, two helicopters and a frigate
had been sent to an area south-southeast of the island of Karpathios.
The Greek military did not respond to a request for comment about
reports of reisdents in the area seeing a "ball of fire in the sky."
An Egyptian Armed Forces spokesman said on Facebook that no distress
message had been received from the plane, prompting speculation about
what sudden events could take it off course.
Egypt's Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said that it was too early to
speculate about mechanical problems or terrorism, and that nothing could
be ruled out immediately.
Thirty Egyptians, 15 French and two Iraqis were on the plane, in
addition to one person each from Algeria, Belgium, Canada, Chad, Great
Britain, Kuwait, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
The disappearance comes roughly two months after a man from the Middle Eastern country made international headlines for hijacking an EgyptAir plane by saying he was wearing a suicide vest.
Seif Eldin Mustafa, 58, said he made the vessel land in Cyprus, in an attempt to see his ex-wife on the island.
No one was injured in that incident, and Mustafa is facing extradition back to Egypt.
In late October, 224 people were killed aboard a Russian plane leaving the country's Sinai Peninsula. Most of those who died were tourists.
Islamic State militants later claimed responsibility and said it brought the flight down with a bomb.
With News Wire Services
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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