Egyptian forensic officials have said that human remains retrieved from the EgyptAir crash last week point to an explosion on board the flight. MS 804, from Paris to Cairo, disappeared off the radar with 66 people on board before it crashed into the Mediterranean Sea, officials said. The cause of its crash remains unknown, though evidence is now being examined.
Earlier on Tuesday, officials in Cairo said the Airbus A320 did not swerve sharply before it crashed, contradicting a statement made by Panos Kammenos, Greece’s defence minister. Kammenos last week had said the aircraft made “two sharp turns” and plummeted several thousand feet before it vanished.
Ehab Azmy, chief of Egypt’s state-run air services provider, said that according to a radar reading MS 804 was flying at its “normal altitude” around 37,000 feet before it went missing, The Guardian reported. “There was no turning to the right or left, and it was fine when it entered Egypt’s [flight information region], which took nearly a minute or two before it disappeared,” Azmy said.
An international search for the aircraft’s black box, which began last week, continues. Teams are hunting for items on Egypt’s coast, north of Alexandria, that could have sunk to a depth of more than 6,500 feet.
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