EgyptAir flight MS804 disappears from radar between Paris and Cairo

EgyptAir flight MS804 disappears from radar between Paris and Cairo.

                             EgyptAir flight

Airline says plane, which took off from France’s Charles de Gaulle airport late on Wednesday night, has gone missing with 66 people on board.

Airline Egyptair has said one of its planes has disappeared from radar on a flight from Paris to Cairo.
Its official Twitter account said:
An official source said Egypt air that flight MS804, which took off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport to Cairo airport at 23.09 GMT Paris [with] 59 passengers on board and 10 crew members disappeared from the radar early in the morning.
Information on the missing flight is still sketchy, but Flightradar24 says the plane in question is an Airbus A320-232.
Egyptair says 59 passengers and 10 crew are aboard.
The flight was scheduled to leave Paris at 11.09pm local time – that’s around six hours ago – for a journey time of around 3 hours 45 minutes*.
It’s not clear at what time contact with the plane was lost. The confirmation from Egyptair was made public around half an hour ago.
[*Clarification: the journey time before contact was lost was around 3 hours 45 minutes; the total expected journey time between Paris and Cairo would have been longer.]
Contact lost at 2.45am Cairo time
Some more information now from Egyptair:
It says flight MS804 lost contact with radar at 02:45 Cairo time.
The plane was at 37,000 ft and disappeared 80 miles (around 10 minutes) before entering Egyptian airspace.
Search and rescue teams are being assembled.
Egyptair says the plane disappeared around 130km (80 miles) before entering Egyptian air space.
A clarification from Egyptair, which now says the plane “faded” from contact 10 miles (16km) inside Egyptian airspace
Egyptair was at the centre of another dramatic episode in March, when a plane flying between Alexandria and Cairo, Flight MS181, was hijacked and directed to land in Larnaca, Cyprus.
Initial speculation then that the hijacker was a terrorist was later downplayed, as it became apparent the man’s motives were connected to his estranged wife. He was arrested and all passengers and crew were released unharmed.

What we know Details are still – understandably – sketchy and facts still emerging.

Here is what we know, via EgyptAir’s official statements: 

 Flight MS804, en route from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Cairo, has disappeared from radar
The plane, an Airbus A320, was scheduled to leave Paris at 11.09pm on Wednesday night. The airline said contact was lost around 16km/10 miles into Egyptian airspace at 2.45am local time.
The plane was carrying 59 passengers and 10 crew.
The plane was travelling at 37,000 feet when it disappeared from radar. Search and rescue efforts are underway.
There is no detail yet on possible reasons for the plane’s disappearance.
Egypt’s civil aviation ministry has confirmed that search and rescue teams are looking for the missing plane.
It also confirms that contact with the plane was lost 10miles/16km within Egyptian airspace.

Flight timings

The plane left Paris Charles de Gaulle at 23.09 local time Wednesday (21.09 GMT/22.09 BST/07.09am Thursday AEST).
It lost contact at 02.45am Cairo time (00.45 GMT/01.45 BST/10.45 AEST).
The plane has now been missing for more than three hours.
The plane was around 3 hours and 40 minutes into its journey (that was not, as earlier reported, the total journey time) when contact was lost.
The fact that the plane was inside Egyptian airspace when contact was lost does not necessarily mean it is over land, as this graphic indicates.

The late-night departure from Paris Charles de Gaulle was this plane’s fifth flight of the day, according to this tracker: View image on Twitter

A useful catch-up from Reuters: 

 National carrier EgyptAir said a plane carrying 69 passengers and crew on a flight from Paris to Cairo had gone missing on Thursday, disappearing from radar over the Mediterranean sea.
“An official source at EgyptAir stated that Flight MS804, which departed Paris at 23:09 (CEST), heading to Cairo has disappeared from radar,” the airline said on its official Twitter account.
Later Tweets by EgyptAir said the plane, which was travelling at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,280m), disappeared soon after entering Egyptian airspace. The aircraft was carrying 59 passengers and 10 crew.
According to flightradar24.com, the plane was an Airbus A320 and its last known position was above the Mediterranean sea.
An Airbus A321 operated by Russia’s Metrojet crashed in the Sinai in 31 October 2015, killing all 224 people on board. Russia and Western governments have said the plane was likely brought down by a bomb, and the Islamic State militant group said it had smuggled an explosive on board.
Reuters reported in January that an EgyptAir mechanic, whose cousin joined Islamic State in Syria, is suspected of planting the bomb, according to sources familiar with the matter.
In March, an EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked and forced to land in Cyprus by a man with what authorities said was a fake suicide belt. He was arrested after giving himself up.
France’s aviation authority could not immediately be reached for comment.

'No distress call' 

 Ahmed Abdel, the vice-chairman of EgyptAir holding company, has been speaking to CNN.
He says there was no distress call from the plane.
Search and rescue has been dispatched and are now at the scene … Daylight has just broken around an hour ago, so we should get some information within the next hour.
He says search teams were informed the coordinates of where the aircraft lost contact and a rescue plane has arrived at that area.
This is at the border of the flight information region (FIR) between Athens and Egypt, around 30/40 miles north of the Egyptian coast.

Ahmed Abdel says – and this differs slightly from the numbers given by EgyptAir via Twitter earlier – there were 66 people on board:
56 passengers 3 security personnel 2 cockpit crew 5 cabin crew crew There were “no recorded snags coming out of Cairo” or reported before leaving Charles de Gaulle for Cairo, he says.
The captain on flight has 6,000+ flying hours, including 2,000 on an A320.
Abdel says there was no special cargo on the flight and no notification had been made to the captain of dangerous goods on board.

This graphic from Flightradar24 shows what it believes to be the last satellite communication from the plane, which tallies with the report from EgyptAir’s Ahmed Abdel that the location of last contact was around 30-40 miles north from the Egyptian coast.
Associated Press reports that Ihab Raslan, a spokesman for the Egyptian civil aviation agency, told SkyNews Arabia that the Airbus A320 most likely crashed into the sea.
However, he also said the plane was about to enter Egyptian airspace when it disappeared from radar, contradicting the airline, which said it was 10 miles (16km) inside Egyptian airspace when contact was lost.
It is not uncommon for conflicting information to surface at this stage – the number of those on board has already been adjusted from 69 to 66.

One child, two babies on board

A further update from EgyptAir:
It confirms that 56 passengers were on board, including one child and two babies It says the captain has 6,275 flying hours, including 2,101 on the A320; the copilot has 2,766.
The plane was manufactured in 2003.
Specialist teams and the Egyptian armed forces are still searching for the plane.
Egypt air is following the situation closely with the relevant authorities through the integrated operations centre.
The company also provides free contact numbers: 0800 7777 0000 from any landline in Egypt and + 202 2598 9320 outside Egypt or any mobile in Egypt.

What we know so far 

 As Europe wakes to news of the missing flight, here is what we know at this point, four hours after the plane lost contact: Flight MS804, en route from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Cairo, has disappeared from radar. The plane, an Airbus A320, left Paris at 11.09pm on Wednesday night (21.09 GMT/22.09 BST/07.09am Thursday AEST). The airline said contact was lost around 16km/10 miles inside Egyptian airspace at 2.45am local time (00.45 GMT/01.45 BST/10.45 AEST). 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. Search and rescue efforts are underway at the site where contact was lost, around 50-65km (30-40 miles) north of Egypt’s coast. The plane, on its fifth journey of the day, was travelling at 37,000 feet when it disappeared from radar. EgyptAir says the captain has 6,275 flying hours, including 2,101 on the A320; the copilot has 2,766. The plane was manufactured in 2003. There is no detail yet on possible reasons for the plane’s disappearance.

Greece has joined the search and rescue operation for the EgyptAir flight, Associated Press reports.
Two aircraft, one C-130 Hercules and one early warning aircraft, have been dispatched, officials at the Hellenic national defence general staff said.
They said one frigate was also heading to the area, and helicopters are on standby on the southern island of Karpathos for potential rescue or recovery operations.

An EgyptAir passenger jet carrying 66 passengers has vanished en route to Cairo.
The flight departed from Paris on Wednesday evening and lost contact with ground crews at 2.45am local time, about 16km (10 miles) inside Egyptian airspace.
The 12-year-old Airbus A320-232 was about 40 minutes from its destination. It was the aircraft’s fifth flight of the day, including journeys to Asmara, Eritrea and Carthage in Tunisia.
The airline’s vice-chairman, Ahmed Abdel, told CNN the plane made no distress call.
There were “no recorded snags coming out of Cairo” or reported before leaving Charles de Gaulle, he said.
The captain had also recorded more than 6,000 flying hours, including 2,000 hours in that model, Abdel said. There had not been any special cargo or notification of dangerous goods on board, he added.

Police take up position at terminal 1. Photograph: Christian Hartmann/Reuters

The New York Times cites Ehab Mohy el-Deen, head of the Egyptian air navigation authority.
He says Greek air traffic controllers notified their Egyptian counterparts that they had lost contact with the plane, the NYT reports.
They did not radio for help or lose altitude. They just vanished.
He said it was too early to speculate on causes and outcomes, “but this is not normal, of course”.

for more updates.
Source: www.theguardian.com