Terrorist attack or tech failure ?

Egypt looking for cause of air crash

The Egyptian Navy has said it has found belongings and parts of the missing EgyptAir’s fuselage about 180 miles north of the Egyptian city of Alexandria.

A statement from the Egyptian Army released on Friday said planes and naval teams in the search operation for the EgyptAir plane that disappeared mid-flight on Thursday had “managed to find some passengers belongings and other parts of the plane north of Alexandria” and were continuing to search and retrieve what they could.

The search for wreckage from missing EgyptAir flight MS804 that disappeared en route from Paris to Cairo continues.

When asked if the military was sure that the wreckage was from flight MS804, Egyptian Ministry of Defence spokesman Brigadier General Mohamed Samir said: “Yes, of course...we are the military.”

Terror attack

Earlier, EgyptAir had wound back claims that wreckage found near the Greek island of Karpathos was from the missing flight MS804, as Egyptian authorities said it was possible a terror attack had brought down the passenger jet.

The plane was believed to have crashed into the Mediterranean Sea with 66 people on board. It disappeared from radar while over the Mediterranean Sea, about 10 miles into the Egyptian air zone. The causes of the crash are still unknown.

Greek and Egyptian investigation teams are trying to find the wreckage of the missing plane and are being aided by French, Turkish and US military support.

Earlier, the authorities said in a statement that wreckage was found near Karpathos Island, and EgyptAir had tweeted that the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the debris was from MS804. But the Egyptian flagship carrier’s Vice President Ahmed Adel later told CNN that the company had been misinformed and the wreckage was “not part of our plane.”

“The search and rescue is still going on,” Adel said.

Conflicting reports

Reuters cited Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail as saying that it was too early to rule out any explanation for the crash, including the possibility of an attack like the one blamed for bringing down a Russian Metrojet holiday airliner in Egypt’s Sinai region in October. And NBC News reported that  Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy said the possibility of a terrorist attack was stronger than that of a technical failure.

A senior US Intelligence official familiar with US capabilities in the region said that ‘phenomenology’ (infrared and multispectral images) indicated strongly that there was an explosion on MS804. The cause remained unclear, the source said. The US has what is described as a “persistent stare” on the region, which collects everything from sound waves through multispectral images to pressure.

Satellite imagery

Officials from multiple US agencies, however, said that a review of satellite imagery had not so far detected any sign of an explosion on board the flight.

Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said the Airbus A320 had swered 90 degrees to the left then spun through 360 degrees to the right before plunging from an altitude of 37,000 feet to 15,000 feet before disappearing from Greek radar screens.

Greek officials also said their air traffic controllers had communicated normally with the pilot as the plane exited Greek air space but then did not receive a response from the plane shortly afterward when they tried to hand communications to Egyptian air traffic controllers.

CNBC