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EGYPTAIR

‘At least 12 days to recover Egyptair black boxes’

Investigators into EgyptAir's plane crash need at least 12 days to recover its black boxes as they await a ship that can retrieve them from the bottom of the Mediterranean, investigation sources said Sunday.

Published: 29 May 2016 17:41 CEST
'At least 12 days to recover Egyptair black boxes'
Egyptians look at posters of the 66 victims of the EgyptAir MS804 flight that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea. Photo: AFP

The Airbus A320 plane crashed into the Mediterranean with 66 people on board during a May 19 flight from Paris to Cairo, after disappearing from radar screens.

Investigators are in a race against time to find the flight recorders, known as the black boxes, which have enough battery power to emit signals for four or five weeks.

The recordings could help investigators determine the reason for the crash.

The plane was carrying passengers from different nationalities, with 40 Egyptians including the crew and 15 French nationals.

Egypt's aviation minister had initially said a terrorist attack was more likely to have brought down the plane, but a technical failure is also likely.

France's aviation safety agency has said the aircraft transmitted automated messages indicating smoke in the cabin and a fault in the flight control unit minutes before losing contact.

Egypt and France have signed agreements with two French companies specialising in deep water searches, Alseamar and Deep Ocean Search (DOS).

“Those two companies have complementary roles: the first is for locating the pings of the black boxes (the signal being emitted by the black boxes' beacon), while the second is for diving and recovering them” with the help of a robot, a source close to the investigation told AFP in Cairo, requesting anonymity.

“But the DOS specialised ship left the Irish sea Saturday and it will reach the perceived crash site only in around 12 days, after having the Egyptian and French investigators embark in Alexandria,” the source added.

The investigation into the crash is led by an Egyptian-headed committee.

Other sources close to the investigation confirmed the information.

The investigators are searching for the black boxes at a depth of around 3,000 metres (around 10,000 feet), some 290 kilometres (180 miles) north of the Egyptian coast.

Three of Alseamar's DETECTOR-6000 acoustic detection systems, which submerged can detect pings for up to 4,000 to 5,000 metres below sea level, have left the French island of Corsica to the crash site Thursday onboard “Laplace”, a French navy ship.

It will arrive at the perceived crash site “Sunday, or Monday at the latest,” according to one of the sources.

“While we are waiting for the DOS ship, equipped for detecting the pings in deep waters, but more importantly the robots capable of descending up to 6,000 metres to recover the black boxes, we will not be wasting time as Leplace will be trying to locate them in the meantime,” said one of the sources.

The source added that after 12 days, “there is a very good chance of recovering the flight recordings thanks to the combination of these two French companies.”

Two members of the French aviation safety agency BEA are on board Leplace.

 

EGYPTAIR

Explosive traces found on crash victims of EgyptAir flight from Paris

Traces of explosives have been detected on remains of victims of an EgyptAir plane crash last May that killed all 66 people on board, Egypt's aviation ministry announced on Thursday.

Published: 15 December 2016 15:13 CET
Explosive traces found on crash victims of EgyptAir flight from Paris
Egyptians light candles in May 2016 during a candlelight vigil for the 66 victims of the EgyptAir MS804 flight. Photo: AFP

An official investigative committee which made the discovery has referred the case to Egypt's state prosecution, it added in a statement.

The plane had been en route to Cairo from Paris when a fire broke out and it crashed into the eastern Mediterranean, investigators had previously said.

Under Egyptian law, the prosecution takes over “if it becomes clear to the investigative committee that there is criminal suspicion behind the accident”, the ministry said.

EgyptAir MS804 was en route from Paris to Cairo when it disappeared from radar over the Mediterranean.

Investigators determined that a fire broke out in or near the cockpit of the Airbus A320 before it crashed between Crete and the coast of northern Egypt.

Egypt's aviation minister had said a terrorist attack was the most likely cause of the crash.

There were 66 people were on board: 56 passengers and 10 crew members consisting of two cockpit crew, five cabin crew, and three security personnel. There were no survivors. Fifteen French passengers were among the dead. 

Two babies and one child were also among the passengers. 

READ ALSO: What we know about EgyptAir flight MS804

France's air safety agency BEA and the plane manufacturer Airbus both declined to comment on Thursday's announcement, which comes while Cairo is still investigating the October 2015 crash of a Russian passenger plane in Egypt's Sinai.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for bombing the Airbus A321 Russian plane that crashed after takeoff from a Sinai resort headed for St Petersburg, killing 224 passengers and crew.

There has been no such claim linked to the EgyptAir crash.

Aviation experts have said there is little chance that a mechanical fault was responsible.

The plane only entered service in 2003, making it relatively new for an aircraft that tends to operate for 30 to 40 years.

The EgyptAir plane was flying at 37,000 feet (11,000 metres) and disappeared about 130 nautical miles off the Greek island of Karpathos.

The plane plunged 22,000 feet and swerved sharply before it disappeared from radar screens, Greece's Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said at the time.

If a bombing is established, investigators will have to determine if a device could have been smuggled aboard a flight taking off from France's busiest airport, Paris Charles de Gaulle.

Security has been tight since last year's jihadist attacks in the French capital.

Internet site FlightRadar24 indicates the EgyptAir plane travelled to Egypt, Tunisia and Eritrea in the two days before the crash, leaving open the possibility that a device could have been planted prior to its arrival in France.