A huge search and rescue operation is underway after an EgyptAir plane which took off from France’s Charles de Gaulle airport on Wednesday night vanished with 66 people on board.
The Airbus A320, which departed from Paris last night at 23.09, disappeared from radar just 20 minutes from its final destination of Cairo.
An EGYPTAIR official declared that EGYPTAIR A320 aircraft in its flight number MS804 lost contact with radar above the Mediterranean Sea.
— EGYPTAIR (@EGYPTAIR) May 19, 2016
The passengers include two babies and one child, two pilots, five cabin crew and three security officials. They are mostly Egyptian, with 15 French passengers, two Iraqis and one passenger from the UK, Canada, Portugal, Belgium, Sudan, Chad, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Algeria
According to EgyptAir, the plane’s emergency devices put out a signal that was received at 4.26am, two hours after the last radar contact. However, The New York Times quotes Ehab Mohy el-Deen, Egypt’s air navigation authority chief, as saying: “They did not radio for help or lose altitude. They just vanished.”
While there are no details about what happened to the plane, French prime minister Manuel Valls says “no theory can be ruled out”.
Speaking to RTL radio, Valls said:
“We are in close contact with the Egyptian authorities, both civil and military.
The Egyptian authorities have already sent air reconnaissance teams to the site, and France is ready to help with the search if the Egyptian authorities ask, of course.”
According to the latest reports, Greece has now joined the search for missing flight 804.
Meanwhile EGYPTAIR has hosted the passengers’ families near to Cairo Airport, where doctors, translators and all the necessary services will be provided.
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