A tweet on EgyptAir’s official account said flight MS804 left Paris at 23:09 pm local time (2109 GMT), “heading to Cairo (and) has disappeared from radar”. Photo by AFP
CAIRO: An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo with 69 people on board has vanished from radar, the airline said on its verified Twitter feed Thursday.
A tweet on the airline’s official account said flight MS804 left Paris at 23:09 pm local time (2109 GMT), “heading to Cairo (and) has disappeared from radar”.
Further tweets in Arabic said contact was lost at 02:45 Cairo time (0045 GMT), when the plane was just inside Egyptian airspace and at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,000 metres).
There were 59 passengers and 10 crew aboard, according to the airline.
30 Egyptians, 15 French were among the passengers on the vanished flight.
The Airbus A320 most likely crashed into the sea, Ihab Raslan, a spokesman for the Egyptian civil aviation agency, told SkyNews Arabia.
He said the plane was about to enter Egyptian airspace when it disappeared from radar. The airline, however, said it had vanished 10 miles (16 kilometers) after it entered Egyptian airspace.
“EGYPTAIR has contacted the concerned authorities and bodies and inspection is underway through the rescue teams,” another tweet in English said.
An EgyptAir flight from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked in March and forced to divert to Cyprus, where the “unstable” hijacker demanded to see his ex-wife.
He surrendered after a six-hour airport standoff, which ended peacefully. – AFP
An informed source at EGYPTAIR stated that Flight no MS804,which departed Paris at 23:09 (CEST),heading to Cairo has disappeared from radar.
— EGYPTAIR (@EGYPTAIR) May 19, 2016