Egypt's aviation minister says some assumptions on vanished plane 'nonsense'

Thursday 19-05-2016 02:58 PM

Egypt's Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy in a press conference on May 19, 2016 - Al-Shorouk

CAIRO, May 19 (Aswat Masriya) – Egypt's aviation minister said in a press conference on Thursday that it is "too early" to establish the reason behind the EgyptAir plane that vanished off the radar earlier today.

"We do not rule out any possibility in the incident including a terrorist act," the minister said, however the minister described assumptions that there was a technical fault in the plane as "nonsense".

Minister Sherif Fathy said that the last contact made with the plane was at 2:30 AM, and trials to reestablish connection were ongoing until 2:50 AM.

The search for the plane or its wreckage is currently ongoing by the Egyptian authorities with the help of France as well as Greece.  

"Until the wreckage of the plane is found, we won’t say that it crashed, even if there is a high probability that it did," Fathy added, "and there is no information yet on plane wreckage found."

The flight, MS804, disappeared off the radar as it was crossing the Mediterranean at 2:45 Cairo time en route from Paris to Cairo, EgyptAir said early Thursday morning. 

The company added on its twitter account that there were 66 people on the flight. There are 30 Egyptian passengers on board the flight, EgyptAir said.

The passengers also include 15 French nationals, two Iraqi nationals, a British national, a Saudi national, a Portuguese national, a Belgian, a Kuwaiti, a Chadian, an Algerian, and a Canadian.

The flight includes 10 EgyptAir crew members on board.

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