Al-Sisi also said that an Egyptian submarine has been dispatched to aid in the search mission, particularly as the mission is now focused on locating the aircraft’s black boxes, which investigators hope will shed further light on the details of the flight and what caused it to crash.
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Egypt sent a submarine Sunday to join the hunt for the flight recorders from the EgyptAir jetliner that crashed in the Mediterranean and killed all 66 people aboard, while hundreds of Coptic Christian mourners filled a church in Cairo to pray for their relatives among the dead.
Now, search crews are narrowing in on a 40-mile radius using the submarine, which can reach depths up to 10,000 feet.
An global flotilla of search ships, aided by surveillance planes, was scouring a section of sea 180 miles north of the port city of Alexandria, and retrieved some wreckage, belongings and human remains over the weekend.
Azmi said on Sunday that the plane was at an altitude of 37 thousand feet within the flight path, without any deviation, and that it disappeared from the radar screens less than a minute after it entered the Egyptian airspace.
We are working hard to salvage the black boxes, which include data and recordings that will help to a great extent in knowing the reasons behind the plane crash.
According to Greece’s defense minister Panos Kammenos the plane swerved and dropped to 10,000 feet before it fell off radar.
In a speech he gave at the opening of a fertilizer plant, Sisi said the investigation into the cause of the crash could take a long time but that no one could hide the facts.
While the French investigators are collaborating with the Egyptian authorities to get to the cause of the crash, it is suspected to have been brought down by some act of terrorism.
According to the airline, 30 Egyptians and 15 French – along with two Iraqis, one Briton, one Belgian, one Portuguese, one Algerian, one Chadian, one Canadian, one Sudanese, one Kuwaiti and one Saudi national – had been aboard the ill-fated aircraft.
However, there is growing speculation that inflight data suggests the plane crashed after fire and smoke was detected from the toilet, which indicates a possible terrorist bomb plant.
ACARS – Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System – transmits short messages between aircraft and ground stations.
“We hear about such accidents, a plane falls or explodes, but it is always far away from us, it was always so far-fetched until it happened to us”, he said.
The Egyptian armed forces said on Thursday that no distress signal was received from the plane.
The aircraft had smoke in the front part of the cabin, BEA said.
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The Egyptian navy is leading the search, but the U.S. Navy is providing assistance.
