Egypt said the disappearance from radar of an EgyptAir jet carrying 66 passengers and crew from Paris to Cairo over the Mediterranean may have been caused by a terrorist attack.
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The EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo dropped off radar screens shortly after leaving Greek airspace and minutes after entering Egyptian airspace. Kerry refused to speculate on the cause of the crash and insisted he and other authorities did not know it yet.
Egyptian airport officials have identified two more victims from the EgyptAir plane that crashed in the Mediterranean. The weather in the area of the sea close to Egypt was also good, with no winds or clouds, the Hellenic National Meteorological Service in Greece said.
Earlier, Greek officials said pieces of plastic were found in the sea some 230 miles south of the island of Crete, as well as two life vests, which appeared to be from an aircraft. The airline released the passengers’ nationalities in a tweet early Thursday.
Greece had deployed aircraft and a frigate to search for the missing plane.
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.
Routine maintenance checks were done Wednesday in Cairo before it left for Paris, an airline official said.
As authorities vow to “keep an open mind” about possible causes for Flight MS804’s disappearance, as of Thursday afternoon, aviation and intelligence officials had begun checking flight manifests from the plane’s last 24 hours against global terrorism watch lists to see if any passenger or crew names appear.
EgyptAir said a “distress call” had been received from the plane two hours after it disappeared from radar, thought to have been an emergency beacon.
About the same time, the Egyptian envoy to France said Greek authorities told the Egyptian embassy in Athens they’d found “blue and white” debris – the colors of EgyptAir.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that France and Egypt will need to cooperate in both the search and rescue operation and the investigation into the cause of the crash.
Egypt’s Aviation Minister Sharif Fathy said that while it was too soon to say why the Airbus A320 crashed, a terrorist attack was more likely than technical issues.
A statement from French President Francois Hollande’s office said, “A crisis cell was actioned immediately”, raising the suggestion terrorism was involved in the loss of the plane. United States sources later told CNN that they were operating under the initial theory that a bomb brought the plane down.
The plane, an Airbus A320, was relatively new and the crew was experienced.
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Sixty-six people were on board Flight MS804, a lot of them from Egypt and France. The plane was diverted to Cyprus, and an hours-long standoff ensued. A man described by authorities as mentally unstable was taken into custody.
