EgyptAir flight 804 heading
from Paris to Cairo disappears from radar with 66 people on board, the airline
reports.
EgyptAir
flight 804 travelling from Paris to Cairo has disappeared from radar with 56
passengers and 10 crew members on board, the airline has said.
French President Francois Hollande said in a televised address
that the plane had crashed early on Thursday.
The plane made "sudden swerves" mid-air and plunged
before dropping off radars in the southern Mediterranean, Greece's defence
minister said.
"At 3:39am the course of the aircraft was south and
south-east of Kassos and Karpathos [islands] ... immediately after it entered
Cairo FIR and made swerves and a descent I describe; 90 degrees left and then
360 degrees to the right," Defence Minister Panos Kammenos told a news
conference.
Greek authorities mounted a search in the area south of the island
of Karpathos without result so far, he said.
However, Egypt's civil aviation ministry said in a statement it
was too early to confirm if the passenger plane had crashed.
According to EgyptAir, the plane took off from Paris' Charles De
Gaulle Airport shortly after 11pm local time.
"At
4:26am, rescue teams affiliated with the Egyptian armed forces have received an
SOS message from the emergency unit of the missing plane," the airline
said in a tweet. However, the Egyptian army later denied detecting a distress
signal from the missing plane, according to AFP news agency.
The Airbus A320 was flying at 37,000 feet when it disappeared 16km
after entering Egyptian air space, the airline said.
Egypt and Greece have launched
maritime searches for the missing flight, the Egyptian Army said.
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