© MENA via AP In this photo provided by Egypt's state news agency MENA, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, center left, convenes an emergency meeting of the National Security Council, the country's highest security body, following th…
Little progress in investigation of EgyptAir crash; president urges patience
Egyptian officials, who speculated after the crash that terrorism was the likely cause, have sounded a more cautious note in subsequent days since no militant group has claimed responsibility and Egyptian military units have recovered only bits of debris and human remains from the sea.
"All scenarios are possible," el-Sissi said at the opening of a fertilizer factory in Damietta, in northern Egypt.
The Egyptian petroleum ministry sent a submarine to the Mediterranean to help search for the cockpit-voice and flight-data recorders from the Airbus A320 jet, which are believed to have sunk to the seafloor since the crash Thursday morning.
The mystery of what happened to the plane –– which crashed with 56 passengers and 10 airline personnel aboard en route from Paris to Cairo –– has deepened since U.S. and Egyptian officials first speculated Thursday that a mechanical failure could not have caused the accident.
The airliner, which Egyptian authorities have said had a clean safety record, was flying at 37,000 feet when radar showed that it suddenly veered left, made a full turn to the right, and then dived into the sea.
French civil aviation authorities reported Saturday that automatic messages sent from the aircraft indicated smoke in the cabin shortly before it lost radar contact at 2:30 a.m. Thursday. But authorities said it was not possible to determine what caused the smoke.
Attention initially focused on Islamic State, the militant group that has a branch in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, because the group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Russian passenger jet that crashed in the Sinai in October. But a recorded statement released Saturday by an Islamic State spokesman, Abu Mohammed Adnani, made no mention of the EgyptAir crash.
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Special correspondent Omar El Adl contributed to this report.
"All scenarios are possible," el-Sissi said at the opening of a fertilizer factory in Damietta, in northern Egypt.
The Egyptian petroleum ministry sent a submarine to the Mediterranean to help search for the cockpit-voice and flight-data recorders from the Airbus A320 jet, which are believed to have sunk to the seafloor since the crash Thursday morning.
The mystery of what happened to the plane –– which crashed with 56 passengers and 10 airline personnel aboard en route from Paris to Cairo –– has deepened since U.S. and Egyptian officials first speculated Thursday that a mechanical failure could not have caused the accident.
The airliner, which Egyptian authorities have said had a clean safety record, was flying at 37,000 feet when radar showed that it suddenly veered left, made a full turn to the right, and then dived into the sea.
French civil aviation authorities reported Saturday that automatic messages sent from the aircraft indicated smoke in the cabin shortly before it lost radar contact at 2:30 a.m. Thursday. But authorities said it was not possible to determine what caused the smoke.
Attention initially focused on Islamic State, the militant group that has a branch in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, because the group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Russian passenger jet that crashed in the Sinai in October. But a recorded statement released Saturday by an Islamic State spokesman, Abu Mohammed Adnani, made no mention of the EgyptAir crash.
––––
Special correspondent Omar El Adl contributed to this report.
© MENA via AP
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