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French Investigators Say Smoke Detected on Crashed Egypt Air Flight

May 21, 2016 

 

An Egyptian naval ship searching for debris from the crashed Egypt Air plane, May 20, 2016 ahram	Parts of the crashed Egypt Air plane found by Egyptian navy ships

 

French investigators say smoke detected on crashed Egypt Air flight; too early to draw conclusions: AP

Egyptian Civil Aviation officials are investigating reports that smoke was detected on flight MS804, which crashed in the Mediterranean on Thursday

Ahram Online , Saturday 21 May 2016

The French air accident investigation agency (BEA) said Saturday smoke was detected before EgyptAir flight MS804 went off radar, but that no conclusions can be drawn, The Associated Press reported.

BEA (Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyses pour la sécurité de l'aviation civile) spokesperon Sebastien Barthe told AP the plane's automatic detection system sent messages of detecting smoke in multiple places on the plane.

The messages "generally mean the start of a fire," said Barthe.

However: "We are drawing no conclusions from this. Everything else is pure conjecture," added Barthe.

Egyptian authorities said Friday they were "looking into the report [that there was smoke on the flight]," an Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation spokesman told AFP. "

At this point I can't deny or confirm it," the Egyptian official said.

Three BEA officials and a technical expert from France-based civil aircraft manufacturer Airbus arrived in Cairo Friday to participate in the investigations.

The Wall Street Journal had cited "people familiar with the matter" as saying the messages indicated smoke in the toilet and in the equipment compartment beneath the cockpit, where there is "a critical part of the airliner's flight-control computer," and that the automated messages were sent around 2:26 am on Thursday.

The Egyptian army, which is leading search and recovery efforts in the Mediterranean, has recovered debris and other remains but has not yet located the flight's Black Box.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/217276/Egypt/Politics-/French-investigators-say-smoke-detected-on-crashed.aspx

 

More families of French victims of EgyptAir crash arrive in Cairo

Egypt's military said Friday it had located belongings and debris in the Mediterranean 290 kilometres north of Alexandria

Ahram Online , Saturday 21 May 2016

Fifteen French from among the families of those who were on EgyptAir's Paris-Cairo flight MS804, which crashed on Thursday in the Mediterranean Sea, arrived in Cairo from Paris in the early hours of Saturday, state news agency MENA reported.

The French victims' families were received by a number of French embassy officials and were escorted to a hotel designated by the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation for their stay as they await news of the fate of their loved ones.

Cairo airport police and customs officials expedited the group's arrival procedures.

On Friday, three French officials and an Airbus technical expert arrived in Cairo to participate in an investigation led by Egyptian authorities.

All 66 people on board flight MS804 are assumed to have died, including 15 French passengers.

Some of the families who arrived on Thursday in Cairo returned home late Friday after they met with EgyptAir officials who updated them on the latest information.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault exchanged condolences Thursday on the casualties of EgyptAir flight MS804. 

Meanwhile, EgyptAir changed on Saturday the name of its Paris-Cairo flight route from MS804 to MS802, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.

Egyptian search teams found Friday more debris, personal belongings, plane seats and body parts in the Mediterranean, presumed to be from flight MS804.

The Egyptian military, which is leading the search and recovery operations, said Friday it had located belongings and debris in the Mediterranean 290 kilometres north of Alexandria.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/217272/Egypt/Politics-/More-families-of-French-victims-of-EgyptAir-crash-.aspx  

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French investigators say smoke reported on Egypt Air jet before crash

By Tim Hepher

Sat May 21, 2016 9:18am EDT

Reuters, PARIS --

 An Egypt Air jet sent a series of signals indicating that smoke had been detected on board before it crashed into the Mediterranean on Thursday, France's air accident investigation agency said on Saturday.

A spokesman for the BEA agency said the signals did not indicate what caused the smoke or fire on board the plane, which plunged into the sea with 66 people on board as it was heading from Paris to Cairo.

But they offered the first clues as to what unfolded in the moments before the crash.

One aviation source said that a fire on board would likely have generated multiple warning signals, while a sudden explosion may not have generated any - though officials stress that no scenario, including explosion, is being ruled out.

Egypt said its navy had found human remains, wreckage and the personal belongings of passengers floating in the Mediterranean about 290 km (180 miles) north of Alexandria.

The army published pictures on Saturday on its official Facebook page of the recovered items, which included blue debris with Egypt Air markings, seat fabric with designs in the airline's colours, and a yellow lifejacket.

Analysis of the debris and recovery of the black boxes are likely to be key to determining the cause of the crash - the third blow since October to Egypt's travel industry, still reeling from political unrest following the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak.

A suspected Islamic State bombing brought down a Russian airliner after it took off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport in late October, killing all 224 people on board, and an EgyptAir plane was hijacked in March by a man wearing a fake suicide belt.

The October crash devastated Egyptian tourism, a main source of foreign exchange for a country of 80 million people, and another similar incident would crush hopes of it recovering.

HUNT FOR BLACK BOXES

The signals from the plane "do not allow in any way to say what may have caused smoke or fire on board the aircraft," said a spokesman for the French BEA agency, which is assisting an official Egyptian investigation.

    He added that the priority now was to find the two flight recorders, known as black boxes, containing cockpit voice recordings and data readings, from the Airbus A320 which vanished from radar early on Thursday.

The plane is believed to have come down in a deep part of the Mediterranean, in 2,000 to 3,000 metres of water, according to a person familiar with Western naval estimates.

That would place the black box locator beacons, which last for 30 days, on the edge of their detectable range from the surface using acoustic equipment typically used during the first stages of a search, according to a report into the 2009 crash of an Air France jet in the Atlantic.

The flight data transmitted before the crash was sent through an automatic system called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which routinely downloads maintenance and fault data to the airline operating the aircraft.

Aviation website Aviation Herald published a burst of seven messages broadcast over the space of three minutes. These included alarms about smoke in the lavatory as well as the aircraft's avionics area, which sits under the cockpit.

While suggesting a possible fire, the relatively short sequence of data gives no insight into pilot efforts to control the aircraft, nor does it show whether it fell in one piece or disintegrated in mid-air, two aviation safety experts said.

"The question now is whether the fire that caused the smoke was the result of an electrical fault - for example a short-circuit caused by damaged wiring - or whether some form of explosive or incendiary device was used - for example by a terrorist - to generate a fire or other damage," aviation safety expert David Learmont said.

The ACARS data suggested the fire had spread fast and "that might explain the fact that there was no distress call," Learmont wrote in a blog.

The aircraft was carrying 56 passengers, including a child and two infants, and 10 crew, EgyptAir said on Thursday. They included 30 Egyptian and 15 French nationals, along with citizens of 10 other countries.

"At this very moment all scenarios are being examined and none is being given greater emphasis," French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters after meeting relatives of the victims of the EgyptAir crash.

"Searching for the aircraft is the priority, finding the 'black boxes' will help answer the legitimate questions raised (by the families)," Ayrault said. France sent a plane and a navy ship to assist with the searches for the jet and three representatives of the BEA, together with an expert from Airbus, were in Cairo to help with the investigation.

The naval search is centred on an area north of Alexandria, just south of where the signal from the plane was lost early on Thursday.

EgyptAir Chairman Safwat Moslem told state television that the radius of the search zone was 40 miles, giving an area of 5,000 square miles, but said it may be expanded.

A European satellite spotted a 2 km-long oil slick in the Mediterranean, about 40 km southeast of the aircraft's last known position, the European Space Agency said.

(Additional reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide and Victoria Bryan; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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القوات المسلحة تعثر على أجزاء من حطام طائرة مصر للطيران

الرئاسة تنعى الضحايا..و لجنة التحقيق المصرية تبدأ عملها بمشاركة 3 فرنسيين وخبير من إيرباص القاهرة ـ

باريس ـ أثينا ـ مندوبو ومراسلو الأهرام ووكالات الأنباء

سفينة حربية مصرية تجوب البحر بحثا عن حطام الطائرة أعلنت القوات المسلحة المصرية صباح أمس عن العثور على أجزاء من حطام طائرة شركة مصر للطيران وبعض متعلقات الركاب فى مياه البحر المتوسط على بعد 290 كيلومترا شمالى مدينة الإسكندرية بعد قرابة يوم من اختفاء الطائرة ، ونعت رئاسة الجمهورية الضحايا فى بيان لها وقدم الرئيس عبد الفتاح السيسى تعازيه لأسر الضحايا من المصريين والأجانب ووجه البيان الشكر والتقدير للدول الصديقة التى بادرت إلى تقديم المساعدة للبحث عن حطام الطائرة وانتشال جثث الضحايا، وأكدت مواصلة التحقيقات من أجل كشف ملابسات هذا الحادث المؤسف واستجلاء الحقائق بشأنه والوقوف على أسبابه.

ومن المقرر أن تقوم اللجنة الفنية بفحص اجزاء من حطام الطائرة. وفى أول تصريح لـ «الأهرام»، قال أيمن المقدم رئيس اللجنة إنها تضم خبراء يمثلون مختلف القطاعات فى مجال الطيران المدنى من طيارين ومهندسين وملاحين وغيرهم. وأكد « المقدم» أنه سيبدأ التنسيق مع القوات المسلحة بخصوص انتشال الحطام ، حيث سيتم إرسال عدد من المحققين للوجود على القطع البحرية لمتابعة عمليات انتشال الحطام ومعرفة احداثيات مكان سقوط الطائرة ، ثم متابعة مراحل البحث عن الصندوقين الأسودين اللذين يمثلان أهمية كبيرة للجنة.

وقال المقدم انه خلال لقائه بالجانب الفرنسى اطلعهم على الخطوات التى اتخذتها مصر بعد الحادث مباشرة حتى الآن، وقد وصل وفد فرنسى يضم ثلاثة محققين وخبيرا فنيا من شركة إيرباص المصنعة للطائرة المنكوبة إلى مطار القاهرة أمس للمساعدة فى التحقيقات، وعقد الوفد أول اجتماع فى مقر وزارة الطيران المدنى مع لجنة التحقيق التى شكلتها مصر، وبحث الاجتماع آخر تطورات عمليات البحث عن حطام الطائرة، ووضع خطة العمل لجمع المعلومات المتوفرة عن الرحلة والطائرة مع التركيز على جهود العثور على الصندوقين الأسودين.

http://www.ahram.org.eg/News/181908/25/515768/الأولى/القوات-المسلحة-تعثر-على-أجزاء-من-حطام-طائرة-مصر-لل.aspx  

 

انتشال قطع من حطام الطائرة المصرية.. وملابسات الحادث لا تزال غامضة

الأهرام ووكالات الأنباء

أ. ف. ب 21-5-2016 | 04:0125888   21-5-2016 | 04:0125888

تم انتشال مقاعد وحقائب من البحر الجمعة، قبالة سواحل مصر، غداة تحطم الطائرة التابعة لشركة مصر للطيران في المتوسط أثناء توجهها من باريس إلى القاهرة لأسباب ما زالت غامضة.

وأعلن الجيش المصري الجمعة، عثور طائراته وزوارقه على أولى قطع حطام طائرة إيرباص "ايه 320"، على مسافة 290 كلم شمال الإسكندرية، مؤكدا "استكمال أعمال البحث والتمشيط وانتشال ما يتم العثور عليه".

من جهة أخرى، أفاد وزير وزير الدفاع اليوناني بانوس كامينوس الجمعة، العثور على "أشلاء من جثة واحد ومقعدين وحقيبة أو حقائب عدة"، بين بقايا الطائرة.

ولاحقا أكدت "مصر للطيران" في بيان، انتشال الجيش "مزيدا من الحطام وأغراضا تعود للركاب وأشلاء بشرية وحقائب ومقاعد".

في هذه الأثناء، أعلنت وكالة الفضاء الأوروبية الجمعة، أن أحد أقمارها الاصطناعية التقط عند الساعة 18,00 (16,00 ت غ)، صورة ما يبدو أنه بقعة نفط "بطول كيلومترين" في البحر "تبعد حوالى 40 كلم جنوب شرق الموقع الأخير للطائرة" المصرية.

وتامل السلطات بأن تسهم هذه القطع الأولى في توضيح أسباب اختفاء آثر الرحلة ام اي804 المفاجئ من شاشات الرادار، في أثناء تحليقها، من دون رصد أي مشاكل، وسط طقس صاف في شرق المتوسط.

وتشكل عمليات البحث المستمرة سباقا مع الوقت، لأن الصندوقين الأسودين للطائرة قادران على إصدار إشارات لمدة لا تتجاوز أربعة أو خمسة اسابيع، بحسب السفارة الفرنسية في مصر.

http://gate.ahram.org.eg/News/980950.aspx  

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