EgyptAir Flight MS804 Disappears en Route From Paris to Cairo Airbus A320 vanished from radar over the Mediterranean SeaBy Jon Ostrower and Andy Pasztor
http://www.wsj.com/articles/egyptair-flight-ms804-from-paris-to-cairo-missing-1463629989?mod=trending_now_2
EgyptAir said one of its aircraft disappeared early Thursday while flying from Paris to Cairo with 66 people aboard, the third major incident to befall the nation’s aviation sector since October.
The Egyptian flag carrier said Flight MS804, which departed Paris at 11:09 p.m. local time, “disappeared from radar” at 2:45 a.m. Cairo time Thursday while at 37,000 feet. It lost communication over the Mediterranean Sea, the airline said, shortly before it was due to land at 3:15 a.m.
An EgyptAir official said military search and rescue teams picked up a possible emergency locator signal at 4:26 a.m. Cairo time, less than two hours after the jet disappeared.
But Egypt’s military, which is leading the search and rescue operation, said shortly after that no such signal had been detected.
A civil aviation ministry official told state television that the initial report had been his ministry’s error.
The Airbus A320, with 56 passengers, including three children, three security personnel and seven crew on board, was last spotted over the Mediterranean Sea on the way to Cairo, according to flight-tracking websites.
Indications about what may have befallen the flight weren’t immediately apparent.
Investigators will likely look to France and Egypt, both scenes of major recent terror attacks, for early clues.
The airline said a search-and-rescue operation was under way and that crews had reached a search location in the Mediterranean.
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