EgyptAir flight MS804 has disappeared from radar during flight from Paris to Cairo
UPDATE: Richard Osman was a mining executive who recently celebrated the birth of his second child before boarding flight MS804.
Greek frigate reports finding two objects
Egyptian minister says terror more likely than technical fault
First passengers named
Plane made sudden swerves and ‘360’ degree turn
AN AUSTRALIAN-UK dual national on board the missing EgyptAir flight recently celebrated the birth of his second child.
Welsh-born geologist Richard Osman, 40, was the only UK citizen listed as a passenger of the flight. The mining executive recently welcomed the birth of his second child Olympe, according to ITV News.
Mr Osman grew up in south Wales after his father, who was a doctor, moved the family there from Egypt.
Mr Osman’s work is believed to have taken him to many international destinations.
“Richard was a very kind person, a loving person, very focused. He was a workaholic, and never deviated from a straight path,” Mr Osman’s brother Alastair Osman said.
This morning the Australian government confirmed an Australian-UK dual national was on board the flight that disappeared while travelling from Paris to Cairo.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the government was working closely with UK authorities, “which are taking the lead in the provision of consular assistance to the man’s family”.
“Out of respect for the man’s family, the government will not provide more details at this stage,” a statement said.
The news comes after EgyptAir retracted an earlier statement that debris from missing flight MS804 was found, saying ‘we stand corrected’.
EgyptAir’s vice chairman Ahmed Adel told CNN the debris was not from the plane.
“We stand corrected on finding the wreckage because what we identified is not a part of our plane. So the search and rescue is still going on,” Adel told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
However, no official statement from EgyptAir has yet been published.
Earlier Greece cast doubt over Egypt’s confirmation that debris from had been found as experts suggested the plane was likely a target of terrorists.
In a statement in English on Facebook, EgyptAir said that Cairo’s foreign ministry has “confirmed finding the wreckage” south of the Greek island of Karpathos.
“EgyptAir resource stated that the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation has just received an official letter from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that confirms the finding of wreckage of the missing aircraft No. MS 804 near Karpathos Island,” the statement read.
The airline said that family members of passengers and crew have been informed and the Egyptian investigation team is still searching for other remains of the plane. “We extend our deepest sympathies to those affected,” EgyptAir said.
Egyptian Vice-President Ahmed Adel told CNN the rescue operation was “turning into a search and recovery”.
However, within an hour of EgyptAir releasing their report claiming the wreckage had been found, Greek officials disputed the claim. Athanassios Binis, head of Greece’s Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board, told AFP that wreckage found in the Mediterranean “does not come from a plane”.
“Up to now the analysis of the debris indicates that it does not come from a plane, my Egyptian counterpart also confirmed to me that it was not yet proven that the debris came from the EgyptAir flight when we were last in contact around 1745 GMT,” Mr Binis said. “What was found was a piece of wood, and some materials that do not come from a plane,” said Mr Binis, although he stressed new information could come in at any time.
Press Release EGYPTAIR resource stated that the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation has just received an official letter.
— EGYPTAIR (@EGYPTAIR) May 19, 2016
The Airbus A320 was en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 passengers and crew when it went down early Thursday.
Egypt’s aviation minister Sherif Fathy said terrorism was more likely than technical failure to be the cause of the crash. “The possibility of having a terror attack is higher than the possibility of having a technical [problem],” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, France’s Accident Investigating Bureau has sent a team of three investigators to Cairo, accompanied by a technical expert from Airbus, the AP reports.
The BEA said the team was leaving on Thursday night. In a statement, it said “the BEA could notably counsel Egyptian authorities on the organisation of an underwater search to locate the plane and the black boxes.”
EARLIER:
A Greek frigate searching for the missing plane found two large plastic floating objects 370 kilometres south of Crete, Greek defence sources said.
The two objects appeared to be pieces of plastic in white and red which were spotted close to an area where a transponder signal was emitted earlier.
Greek broadcaster ERT also said two orange objects were found in a similar area within Egyptian air traffic control.
“There have been finds southeast of Crete, inside the Cairo flight information area,” Greek army general staff spokesman Vassilis Beletsiotis told AFP.
Ship captain Tarek Wahba, who works for Maersk Egypt has also posted a series of images from the large-scale search on Facebook. While they are unable to be independently verified, the pictures purport to show “life jackets and debris” from the plane.
‘SUDDEN SWERVES’
The Greek defence minister gave dramatic insight into the final recorded moments of EgyptAir flight MS804, saying the plane carrying 66 people “swerved and then plunged” before turning 360 degrees.
Panos Kammenos said the aircraft was cruising inside Egyptian airspace at an altitude of 37,000 feet when it made a series of sudden movements.
“It turned 90 degrees left and then a 360 degree turn toward the right, dropping from 38,000 to 15,000 feet and then it was lost at about 10,000 feet,” he said.
French President Francois Hollande confirmed the plane crashed and said terror could not be ruled out.
“The information we have gathered — ministers, members of government and, of course, the Egyptian authorities — confirm, sadly, that it has crashed. It is lost,” the French leader said following an emergency meeting on Thursday.
“No hypothesis is ruled out.”
Stories of passengers have begun to emerge including that of a military training student who was flying home to Chad to mourn his mother.
Kuwait has named its national who died as Abdulmohsen al-Muteiri. British man Richard Osman was also on board.
Airbus initially released a statement saying the plane, which had accumulated 48,000 flight hours was “lost”.
Earlier Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said “we cannot rule anything out”. Anonymous security officials from Greece and Egypt have confirmed the crash, however EgyptAir maintains the reason for the disappearance “hasn’t yet been confirmed”.
WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR
• EgyptAir flight MS804 vanished on four hour trip from Paris to Cairo
• It was due to land at 3.15am Cairo time
• The plane disappeared from radar 2.30am on Thursday Egypt time, 16km into Egyptian airspace over Mediterranean Sea
• 66 passengers on board including seven crew and three security staff
• Distress signal reportedly received at 4.26am, almost two hours after plane disappeared from radar
• Ship captain reported “flame in the sky” about 130 nautical miles south of island of Karpathos
• Greek authorities say flight made erratic moves just before it disappeared
#MS804 #EgyptAir Rescue/exploration ships now heading to 33.6757, 28.7924 - HD snippet I recorded on @MarineTraffic pic.twitter.com/Zq83rWmmBA
— Henk van Ess (@henkvaness) May 19, 2016
Earlier, EgyptAir tweeted in Arabic about a “distress signal”, which suggested it could be from the plane’s emergency devices. However the Egyptian army denied such a signal was received.
There were also unconfirmed reports that a merchant ship saw an “explosion that lit up the sky” near the Greek island of Karpathos where the plane was believed to have disappeared, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Greek Navy: SAR investigating merchant ship report of "explosion that lit up the sky" 130mi E of Karpathos #MS804 https://t.co/VYxOo3bkU9
— Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower) May 19, 2016
66 PEOPLE ON BOARD
France called a crisis meeting of top ministers Thursday morning and Prime Minister Manuel Valls said “no theory can be ruled out” to explain the plane’s disappearance.
EgyptAir confirmed flight MS804 disappeared after departing from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport at 11.09pm (CEST) on the way to Cairo.
The airline originally reported there were 69 people on board but later revised the number to 66. There were 56 passengers, including one child and two babies, plus three EgyptAir security staff and seven crew members.
The nationalities of passengers include: 15 French, 30 Egyptian, 1 British, 1 Belgian, 2 Iraqis, 1 Kuwaiti, 1 Saudi, 1 Sudanese, 1 Chadian, 1 Portuguese, 1 Algerian and 1 Canadian. No Australians were believed to be on board.
Family members of passengers began arriving at airports in Cairo and Paris shortly after the reports of the missing aircraft emerged. In Egypt, airport authorities brought doctors to the scene after several distressed family members collapsed.
‘THEY JUST VANISHED’
The EgyptAir Twitter account said the plane was “on the rise” and at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11km high) before disappearing 10 miles (16km) after entering Egyptian airspace.
It said the radar tracking system lost contact with the plane at 2.30am (Cairo time), or 10.45am AEST. It originally reported it lost contact at 2.45am.
It was due to land half an hour later at 3.15am Cairo time, after a four-hour flight.
EgyptAir confirmed the plane was flying over the Mediterranean Sea when Egyptian authorities lost contact with it. The aircraft was about 280km from the Egyptian coast.
Last received ADS-B position from #MS804 with Egyptian FIR (Egyptian airspace) boundary overlay. pic.twitter.com/TCGyEM6zT7
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) May 19, 2016
The head of Egypt’s air navigation authority Ehab Mohy el-Deen told the New York Times that Greek air traffic controllers notified their Egyptian counterparts they had lost contact with the plane.
“They did not radio for help or lose altitude. They just vanished,” he said.
Egypt’s state-run newspaper Al-Ahram quoted an airport official as saying the pilot did not send a distress call before the plane disappeared, and that the last contact with the plane was 10 minutes before it disappeared from radar. It did not identify the official.
EgyptAir said the aircraft commander had 6275 hours experience, including 2101 hours flying the same model aircraft, which was an Airbus A320 manufactured in 2003. The co-pilot had 2766 hours flying time.
Greece joined the search and rescue operation sending two aircraft, a C-130 Hercules and one early warning aircraft.
Officials at the Hellenic National Defense General Staff said one frigate was also heading to the area, and helicopters were on standby on the southern island of Karpathos for potential rescue or recovery operations.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault offered to send military planes and boats to join the Egyptian search for wreckage.
French president Francois Hollande spoke with Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on the phone and agreed to “closely co-operate to establish as soon as possible the circumstances” in which the EgyptAir flight disappeared, according to a statement issued in Paris.
France remains under a state of emergency after Islamic extremist attacks killed 130 people in a spree of attacks in November claimed by the extremist Islamic State group.
There is already speculation about why three security staff were on the plane, with aviation safety analyst David Soucie telling CNN this was “not routine”.
But EgyptAir vice chairman Ahmed Adel told Reuters: “There was nothing unusual. It was a routine flight”.
Aviation Safety Analyst David Soucie on #CNN reports 3 security officers on flight. Not routine. #MS804 #EgyptAir
— Cheril (@_nightshade) May 19, 2016
EgyptAir says it has contacted the concerned authorities and “inspection is under way through the rescue teams”.
It also provided free contact numbers for concerned families. Call 0800 7777 0000 from any landline in Egypt or for those outside Egypt, call +202 25989320.
.@EGYPTAIR stating #MS804 has "disappeared from radar". FR24 flight track: https://t.co/6tH4GQzOWU pic.twitter.com/NteMuuFj1O
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) May 19, 2016
HISTORY OF TRAGEDY
It would not be the first time a plane has been brought down by a suspected bomb over Egypt.
In 2015, an Airbus A321 operated by Russia’s Metroject crashed in the Sinai, a peninsula in Egypt, killing 224 people on board.
Islamic State claimed to have smuggled an explosive device on board, and Russia and western governments have said it was likely a bomb brought down the plane.
More recently, one of the EgyptAir’s planes travelling between Alexandria and Cairo was hijacked by an Egyptian man wearing a fake explosive belt. The plane was diverted to Cyprus and sat on the tarmac for six hours in March.
The disappearance is the latest in a number of recent air disasters.
Metrojet flight 9268
On October 31 last year, Metrojet flight 9268 bound for St Petersburg exploded over the northern Sinai, 23 minutes after take off from Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh airport.
The Airbus had 217 passengers, mostly Russians, and seven crew members on board.
After initially rejecting the suggestion, Russia later admitted the plane was brought down by a homemade bomb on board.
Germanwings flight 9525
On March 24 last year Germanwings Flight 9525, with 144 passengers and six crew on-board, began descending one minute after the last routine contact with air traffic control.
According to an investigation, co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed the plane into the Alps. He had been treated for depression in the past.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17
On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, including 38 Australian citizens and residents.
A Dutch civil investigation concluded that the Boeing 777 was downed by a Soviet-designed Buk surface-to-air missile. Russian-backed rebels have been blamed for the incident.
This week NSW State Coroner Michael Barnes handed down his findings into the crash, describing it as “gross mass murder” deliberately perpetrated by “a person or persons not yet known”.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370
On May 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight 370 went missing about one hour into its journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, while it was flying over the South China Sea. The Boeing 777 was carrying 12 Malaysian crew and 227 passengers, including six Australians.
Its disappearance sparked a multinational search effort and its fate has remained a mystery. Last week, Australian authorities said pieces of debris washed up in South Africa and Mauritius were “almost certainly” from MH370.
Air France flight 447
Air France Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 people on-board.
It took nearly two years to find the plane’s black boxes, and an investigation uncovered recorder information revealing one of the pilots shouted “F**k, we’re dead” as the plane went down.
AirAsia flight QZ8501
AirAsia flight QZ8501 was flying between Surabaya, Indonesia, and Singapore when it disappeared from radar on December 28, 2014. The plane had crashed into the Java Sea during bad weather, killing all 155 passengers and seven crew on-board.
Pakistan International Airlines flight 404
On August 25 in 1989 Pakistan International Airlines Flight 404, which had 54 passengers and crew on board, disappeared after taking off from Gilgit, Pakistan.
It’s thought the aircraft may have crashed in the Himalayas, but no wreckage has ever been found.
— With AP
More to come.
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