Egypt Air flight from Paris to Cairo was likely brought down by terror attack, officials say
(FOX)- A Cairo-bound EgyptAir flight that went down in the Mediterranean Sea with 66 aboard early Thursday hours after departing from Paris zig-zagged sharply before plunging, according to aviation officials, who said terrorism was a likely cause of the crash.
Government officials from France, Greece and Egypt spoke at separate news conferences even as boats and ships from several countries were scouring the waters off of the Greek island of Karpathos, near where a witness reported seeing a fireball in the sky.
Speaking from Cairo, Egyptian Minister of Aviation Sherif Fathy said all officials can confirm for now is that the AirBus 320, which left Charles de Gaulle Airport at 11:09 p.m. local time Wednesday and was due in Cairo at 3:15 a.m., “vanished.”
“I’m not excluding any theory,” said Fathy, who responded to a reporter’s question by saying that the possibility of a terror attack as the cause of the crash is “stronger” than technical failure.
The head of Russia’s top domestic security agency, Alexander Bortnikov, also said Thursday that “in all likelihood it was a terror attack” causing the crash of the EgyptAir plane, calling for a joint action to track down those responsible for that “monstrous attack.”
Greek officials say the plane banked and spun sharply just before dropping.
“The plane carried out a 90-degree turn to the left and a 360-degree turn to the right, falling from 37,000 to 15,000 feet and the signal was lost at around 10,000 feet,” Greece’s Defense Minister Panos Kammenos told a news conference Thursday.