Share

France opens manslaughter inquiry into EgyptAir crash

“Tests have been carried out… and we can be sure the flight parameters were properly recorded”, the investigators added.

Advertisement

The Airbus A320 was at 37,000 feet when it lost contact above the Mediterranean, shortly before the aircraft entered Egyptian airspace.

Egypt’s Civil Aviation Minister, Sherif Fathy, said that the box had been destroyed, but that its data storage unit was recovered and sent to investigators.

The voice and flight data recorders, known as black boxes, arrived in Paris from Cairo on Monday so that salt deposits could be removed.

“Work to fix the second black box will commence tomorrow”.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened a manslaughter inquiry into the crash in May of an EgyptAir plane that killed 66 people, saying there is no evidence so far to link it to terrorism.

Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, spokesperson of the Paris prosecutor’s office, told the Associated Press that the investigation will be an accident probe and not an extremism probe. She said French authorities are “not at all” favoring the theory that the plane was downed deliberately, though the status of the inquiry could eventually change if evidence emerges to that effect.

The flight data recorder of EgyptAir flight MS804 had been successfully repaired, paving the way for investigators to analyse data that may explain its crash.

The cause of the crash remains unknown.

Advertisement

Asked if the prosecutor was looking into terrorism at this stage, an official said: “No”. Forty Egyptians were on board, as well as two Iraqis, two Canadians, and one each from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.

The Egyptian army posted images on its Facebook page of belongings and wreckage recovered from the doomed flightAP