Terrorism likely cause of air crash in Egypt which kills 66

[webfact]

Terrorism likely cause of air crash in Egypt which kills 66
By Robert Hackwill



CAIRO: -- The Americans are talking about a bomb, and Egypt’s Aviation minister thinks terrorism is the likely cause, but what is clear is 66 people have died in the crash of an Airbus in the waters off Egypt.

Fifteen are French, and Paris and Cairo have vowed to work together to find the culprits, and the plane.

The Egyptians had said the Greeks told them they found blue and white wreckage from the missing plane south of the island of Crete. This was later denied, but it is highly likely the Paris to Cairo A320 lies beneath the surface in this zone. There has been much confusion over several hours about the finding of wreckage, but the crash site remains unknown and no debris has been discovered.

At the time of its disappearance, the plane was flying over water 3000 metres deep, which could complicate salvage if it crashed there.

“If you analyse the situation properly, the possibility of having a different action or having a terror attack, is higher than the possibility of having a technical fault,” said Egypt’s Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi.

The head of the Russian secret service, the FSB, agrees with him. The plane fell off the radar when it entered Egyptian airspace. Within minutes the alarm was raised as the crew was not responding to calls and it became clear the plane was in difficulties of some sort.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-05-20

[ezzra]

Here we go again.... all eyes are right now on ISIL, the most likely culprit, but than again< Egypt

has few internal and domestic enemies that several groups could also be found associated

with the tragedy, all it remain to see now is how it was done, and if the bomber/bomber originated

from France, than this country has many questions to answer.....

[coma]

Yes. Here we go again. However there seems to be something more sinister going on. The old MH 370 line of misinformation has been in full swing since the beginning with " we've found it, no that wasn't it, we've found it, nope that wasn't it either. Ohh there is a ping, ohh no it wasn't. And "It sent a distress call, then nope, they actually didn't ".

Also, descending rapidly from 37000 to 15000 ft seems interesting, as that altitude is where an aircraft that has de-pressurised would immediately descend to. As if they had time to react to and event on board, yet if that were the case the pilots should have squawked a distress signal. But none were sent. Then there is the erratic flying at this level then down on to 10000 feet before it disappeared. Possibly suggesting this is where it entered the water. But why have they found no wreckage? A drop into the water from this [ low] altitude surely would help pin point authorities and the search party in almost the exact location of the "crash site". This is the South Eastern Mediterranean. Not the Southern Ocean. So why have they not found any of the wreckage yet ????? Any aviation expert here ? What is your take ?

Edited May 20, 2016 by coma

[jaidam]

Some security expert was talking on CNN yesterday afternoon that there were 56 ISIS fans/members working security at Charles De Gualle as of last November. The incredible thing was he was asked what became of them, he said their bosses would try to keep them away from sensitive areas. Are u kidding me? There is clearly no place for muslims in any security job until they stop trying to exterminate non-believers. This should be obvious people! 66 people died yesterday due to PC, very simple. More will die soon, because of PC.

[NeverSure]

Yes. Here we go again. However there seems to be something more sinister going on. The old MH 370 line of misinformation has been in full swing since the beginning with " we've found it, no that wasn't it, we've found it, nope that wasn't it either. Ohh there is a ping, ohh no it wasn't. And "It sent a distress call, then nope, they actually didn't ".

Also, descending rapidly from 37000 to 15000 ft seems interesting, as that altitude is where an aircraft that has de-pressurised would immediately descend to. As if they had time to react to and event on board, yet if that were the case the pilots should have squawked a distress signal. But none were sent. Then there is the erratic flying at this level then down on to 10000 feet before it disappeared. Possibly suggesting this is where it entered the water. But why have they found no wreckage? A drop into the water from this [ low] altitude surely would help pin point authorities and the search party in almost the exact location of the "crash site". This is the South Eastern Mediterranean. Not the Southern Ocean. So why have they not found any of the wreckage yet ????? Any aviation expert here ? What is your take ?

I can't find two news reports that agree with each other. There is a report that the plane's flight became erratic with left and right turns and a sudden descent to 15,000 ft but then continuing on down. This would be consistent with airframe failure such as an inability to maintain control. It could be pilots fighting over control.

There were reports that the site had been located in the Med. off Crete but that is now discounted and the search continues atm.

You are correct that a dive to 15,000 feet would be the correct action if cabin pressure was lost because there is then enough oxygen in the atmosphere for people to breath. It's confusing in that it wasn't a controlled dive. All of that of course could come from an onboard explosion.

Egypt is suggesting, and did right away, that it looks like a terrorist act. Surely that is far more likely that a simple mechanical failure.

That's all I can find right now.

[scotchonrocks]

We can't jump to any conclusions until the black box is found. It's only been down 24 hours &lt;deleted&gt; let the experts do their jobs.

[Steely Dan]

This follows on from news that scores of ISIS sympathizers work at Brussels airport. Evidently Paris airport has likewise been infiltrated. I would rather have no religion of peace supporters anywhere near my baggage or plane maintenance thanks very much. But such measures for security clearance would be deemed discriminatory by liberals, who would presumably prefer the odd plane to be blown out of the sky, in the name of tolerance.

[webfact]

Terrorism suspected in crash of Egyptian jet; 66 feared dead
By MAGGIE MICHAEL, ELENA BECATOROS and RAPHAEL SATTER

CAIRO (AP) — An EgyptAir jetliner en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people aboard veered wildly in flight and crashed in the Mediterranean Sea early Thursday, authorities said. Egyptian and Russian officials said it may have been brought down by terrorists.

There were no signs of survivors.

EgyptAir Flight 804, an Airbus A320 with 56 passengers and 10 crew members, went down about halfway between the Greek island of Crete and Egypt's coastline, or around 175 miles (282 kilometers) offshore, after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle Airport, authorities said.

Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said the plane spun all the way around and suddenly lost altitude just before vanishing from radar screens around 2:45 a.m. Cairo time (12:45 a.m. GMT).


He said it made a 90-degree left turn, then a full 360-degree turn to the right, plummeting from 38,000 feet (11,582 meters) to 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). It disappeared at about 10,000 feet (3,048 meters), he said. There were no reports of stormy weather at the time.

Egyptian and Greek authorities in ships and planes searched the suspected crash area throughout the day for traces of the airliner or its victims, with more help on the way from the U.S., Britain and France.

But as night fell, they had yet to find any confirmed debris, at one point dismissing a reported sighting of life vests and other floating material.

Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi cautioned that the disaster was still under investigation but said the possibility it was a terror attack "is higher than the possibility of having a technical failure."

Alexander Bortnikov, chief of Russia's top domestic security agency, went further, saying: "In all likelihood it was a terror attack."

There was no immediate claim from militants that they had downed the plane.

If it was terrorism, it would be the second deadly attack involving Egypt's aviation industry in seven months.

Last October, a Russian passenger plane that took off from an Egyptian Red Sea resort crashed in the Sinai, killing all 224 people aboard. Russia said it was brought down by a bomb, and a local branch of the Islamic State claimed responsibility.

Thursday's disaster also raises questions about security at De Gaulle Airport, at a time when Western Europe has been on high alert over the deadly Islamic extremist attacks in Paris and at the Brussels airport and subway over the past six months.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that airport security had been tightened considerably before the disaster, in part because of the coming European soccer championship, which France is hosting.

The Egyptian military said it did not receive a distress call from the doomed plane, and Egypt's state-run daily Al-Ahram quoted an unidentified airport official as saying the pilot did not send one. That could mean that whatever sent the aircraft plummeting into the sea was sudden.

Its erratic course suggested a number of possible explanations, including a catastrophic mechanical or structural failure, a bombing, or a struggle over the controls with a hijacker in the cockpit.

Egyptian security officials said they were running background checks on the passengers to see if any had links to extremists.

In the U.S., the FBI offered its assistance in the investigation. FBI Director James Comey said the bureau has no evidence yet that the plane was brought down intentionally.

California Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said there is much that is unknown.

"We are looking through our intelligence collections to figure out if we have any images. Do we have any signals intelligence that reveals a discussion of a plot like this?" Schiff said.

"We're working with the French to try to figure out is there any information we have that could shed light on any of the passengers, but there's nothing yet to confirm the cause of the plane crash."

He said the plane seemed to have broken apart in flight, but why is unclear.

Retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Robert Latiff, an aerospace expert at the University of Notre Dame, said that while it is too early to tell for certain, an accidental structural failure of the highly reliable A320 is "vanishingly improbable."

He also cast doubt on the possibility of a struggle in the cockpit, saying the crew would have triggered an alarm.

Instead, he said, "sabotage is possible, and if there were lax controls at airports and loose hiring and security policies, increasingly likely."

Similarly, John Goglia, a former U.S. National Transportation Safety Board member, said early indications point more to a bomb, since it appears that no mayday call was issued during the abrupt turns. He said the aircraft's black-box voice and data recorders should hold the answers.

Those on board, according to EgyptAir and various governments, included 15 French passengers, 30 Egyptians, two Iraqis, one Briton, one Kuwaiti, one Saudi, one Sudanese, one Chadian, one Portuguese, one Belgian, one Algerian and two Canadians. Two babies were aboard, officials said.

Among the passengers, according to employers and officials, were the Egypt-raised manager of a Procter & Gamble plant in Amiens, France; a Saudi woman who works at the Saudi Embassy in Cairo; the sister-in-law of an Egyptian diplomatic official in Paris; and a student at France's prestigious Saint-Cyr military academy who was heading home to Chad to mourn his mother.

Whatever caused the crash, the disaster is likely to deepen Egypt's woes as the country struggles to revive its ailing economy, particularly its lucrative tourism industry. It has been battered by the bloodshed and political turmoil that have engulfed Egypt since the 2011 overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.

French President Francois Hollande held an emergency meeting at the Elysee Palace. He also spoke with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi by telephone and agreed to "closely cooperate to establish as soon as possible the circumstances" surrounding the disaster, according to a statement.

In addition to joining the search-and-rescue operation, France sent a team of accident investigators.

In Cairo, el-Sissi convened an emergency meeting of the National Security Council, the country's highest security body. It includes the defense, foreign and interior ministers and the chiefs of the intelligence agencies.

In Paris, the city prosecutor's office opened an investigation. "No hypothesis is favored or ruled out at this stage," it said in a statement.

Families of passengers gathered at the Cairo airport, desperate for any news. Authorities brought doctors to the scene after several distressed family members collapsed.

"They don't have any information," lamented Mohamed Ramez, whose in-laws were on the plane. "But obviously there is little hope."

At De Gaulle Airport, a man and woman sat at an information desk near the EgyptAir counter, the woman sobbing into a handkerchief, before they were led away by police.

The Airbus A320 is a widely used twin-engine plane that operates on short- and medium-haul routes. Nearly 4,000 A320s are in use around the world.

The last deadly crash involving one of the planes was in March 2015, when one of the pilots of a Germanwings flight deliberately slammed it into the French Alps, killing all 150 people aboard.

Airbus said the aircraft in Thursday's disaster was delivered to EgyptAir in 2003 and had logged 48,000 flight hours. The pilot had more than 6,000 hours of flying time, authorities said.

In March, an EgyptAir plane was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus. A man described by authorities as mentally unstable was taken into custody.

___

Becatoros reported from Athens and Satter from Paris. Associated Press writers Derek Gatopoulos and Nicholas Paphitis in Athens; Angela Charlton and Sylvie Corbet in Paris; Deb Riechmann and Eric Tucker in Washington; and Hamza Hendawi in Cairo contributed to this report.


-- (c) Associated Press 2016-05-20

[Rancid]

Hopefully the culprits will be correctly identified and killed. Another good argument for not supplying ISIS with anti-air missiles as so many US neocon hawks have suggested. I don't know, sure seems to be a lot of mysterious plane crashes these days, and the list of countries seem to have a common thread.

[brewsterbudgen]

Hopefully the culprits will be correctly identified and killed. Another good argument for not supplying ISIS with anti-air missiles as so many US neocon hawks have suggested. I don't know, sure seems to be a lot of mysterious plane crashes these days, and the list of countries seem to have a common thread.

If it turns out to be pilot error, they will already have been killed.

[MobileContent]

Before the plane got to Paris it made a stop in Eritrea and Tunis. If it was terrorism I would not be surprised if the bomb got on board in either Eritrea or Tunisia.

[coma]

Yes. Here we go again. However there seems to be something more sinister going on. The old MH 370 line of misinformation has been in full swing since the beginning with " we've found it, no that wasn't it, we've found it, nope that wasn't it either. Ohh there is a ping, ohh no it wasn't. And "It sent a distress call, then nope, they actually didn't ".

Also, descending rapidly from 37000 to 15000 ft seems interesting, as that altitude is where an aircraft that has de-pressurised would immediately descend to. As if they had time to react to and event on board, yet if that were the case the pilots should have squawked a distress signal. But none were sent. Then there is the erratic flying at this level then down on to 10000 feet before it disappeared. Possibly suggesting this is where it entered the water. But why have they found no wreckage? A drop into the water from this [ low] altitude surely would help pin point authorities and the search party in almost the exact location of the "crash site". This is the South Eastern Mediterranean. Not the Southern Ocean. So why have they not found any of the wreckage yet ????? Any aviation expert here ? What is your take ?

I can't find two news reports that agree with each other. There is a report that the plane's flight became erratic with left and right turns and a sudden descent to 15,000 ft but then continuing on down. This would be consistent with airframe failure such as an inability to maintain control. It could be pilots fighting over control.

There were reports that the site had been located in the Med. off Crete but that is now discounted and the search continues atm.

You are correct that a dive to 15,000 feet would be the correct action if cabin pressure was lost because there is then enough oxygen in the atmosphere for people to breath. It's confusing in that it wasn't a controlled dive. All of that of course could come from an onboard explosion.

Egypt is suggesting, and did right away, that it looks like a terrorist act. Surely that is far more likely that a simple mechanical failure.

That's all I can find right now.

I was hedging bets earlier that it had the hallmarks of ISIS or some affiliate group. But surely they would have claimed responsibility for it by now surely. Unless it was a lone wolf attack or if their terrorist operation is still ongoing.

The airframe failure or some other similar malfunction angle doesn't fly [excuse the pun] too much with me as the pilot should have had time to send off a distress signal. This leaves me leaning towards it possibly being the work of another rogue pilot. That could explain the aircraft's erratic flight path and no mayday sent. One pilot fighting off the other would surely not have allowed an opportunity to send any comms off.

Let's not forget EgyptAir Flight 990 back in 1999. This airline has form. But that still doesn't explain why they haven't found any wreckage yet ? It seems to be smoke and mirrors just like MH370 at the moment. Or an attempt at arse covering. Just as the Malaysian did.

[Lokie]

What is getting me slightly is the fact that the South Med has probably more multi nation war ships/search vessels with the current migrant crisis (or so we are led to believe) than any other patch of water in the world.

Your not telling me none of these military type vessels did not pick this aircraft up on their radars or other equipment???

[Mosha]

5ime this was pushed out.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3175847/Could-bomb-proof-bags-stop-Lockerbie-Material-contains-explosions-luggage-hold-aircraft-safe.html

Sent from my SMART_4G_Speedy_5inch using Tapatalk

[alocacoc]

Some security expert was talking on CNN yesterday afternoon that there were 56 ISIS fans/members working security at Charles De Gualle as of last November. The incredible thing was he was asked what became of them, he said their bosses would try to keep them away from sensitive areas. Are u kidding me? There is clearly no place for muslims in any security job until they stop trying to exterminate non-believers. This should be obvious people! 66 people died yesterday due to PC, very simple. More will die soon, because of PC.

We are living in a time, where political correctness is higher appreciated then safety. It's like they say; better sorry then safe.

[Class C]

I think it's time to fit cameras into planes, a move that would help to provide many more additional insights.

[Mosha]

5ime this was pushed out.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3175847/Could-bomb-proof-bags-stop-Lockerbie-Material-contains-explosions-luggage-hold-aircraft-safe.html

Sent from my SMART_4G_Speedy_5inch using Tapatalk

Time not some.

Sent from my SMART_4G_Speedy_5inch using Tapatalk

[Class C]

they konw it was the israelis that shot it down, they just dont want to admit it yet

Is your name Moshe Yaalon ?

[khaosai]

Pilots onboard an aircraft that has suffered a rapid depressurisation will aim to descend to 10000ft, not 15000ft, unless of course terrain is an issue. Terrain is not an issue in this case.

Communication in that region can be a challenge. Distance to Cairo from the boundary between Greece and Egypt is approximately 260 nautical miles.

[neverdie]

I'm led to believe they've located some floatsam believed to be from the a/c.

Heard it on the wireless.

Time to get the deep sea gear out and drag up the orange boxes.

[IAMHERE]

Hopefully the culprits will be correctly identified and killed. Another good argument for not supplying ISIS with anti-air missiles as so many US neocon hawks have suggested. I don't know, sure seems to be a lot of mysterious plane crashes these days, and the list of countries seem to have a common thread.

The main reason ISIS is active in Libya is because Mouhammar had purchased about 5000 surface to air missiles. Could well be ISIS found a working one.

I have never heard of anyone wanting to arm ISIS with missiles to bring down aircraft.