EgyptAir Flight MS804 Disappears

A flight MS804, that was on its way from Paris to Cairo has been reported have disappeared from radar.

EgyptAir has stated that the plane’s emergency devices, possibly an emergency locator transmitter or beacon, sent a signal that was received at 4.26am local time, two hours after the last radar contact.

The plane, which is an Airbus A320, left Paris at 11.09pm on Wednesday night, and the airline said contact was lost around 16km/10 miles inside Egyptian airspace at 2.30am local time.

The plane was carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew: two cockpit crew, five cabin crew and three security personnel. The airline said two babies and one child were on board.

The airline said among the passengers were 30 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis, and one each from the UK, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria and Canada.

Search and rescue efforts are underway at the site where contact was lost, around 280km (175 miles) north of Egypt’s coast. Greece has joined the search and operation.

The plane, which was on its fifth journey of the day was travelling at 37,000 feet when it disappeared from radar.

EgyptAir says has 6,275 flying hours, including 2,101 on the A320; the copilot has 2,766. The plane was manufactured in 2003.

French prime minister Manuel Valls said that there is no theory that can be ruled out in investigating of the disappearance. Up to now, there is no possible reason that has been found to indicate the possible reason for the planes disappearance.

This is not the first case of plane missing as in 2014, a Malaysian Airlines plane, flight MH370, had 239 people onboard and was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014 went missing when air traffic control staff lost contact with it.

Despite an extensive search of the southern Indian Ocean, no trace of the aircraft was found until the discovery of the barnacle-encrusted flaperon on Reunion Island, more than 3,700km (2,300 miles) away from the main search site, in July 2015.

French investigators confirmed the aircraft wing part came from the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777, after one of three numbers found on the flaperon was formally identified by a technician from Airbus Defense and Space (ADS-SAU) in Spain, which made the part for Boeing. Other parts of the plane have never been found.

Article by Vera Shawiza.