Egyptair crash: Investigators say traces of explosives found on victims

Egypt’s Aviation Investigation Committee on Thursday said it had found traces of explosives on the remains of victims of the Egyptair plane which crashed into the Mediterranean in May.

A statement from the Egyptian Civil Aviation ministry said a criminal investigation would now begin into the crash of the Airbus 320.

Flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo plunged into the Mediterranean sea on May 19 after it disappeared from radar screens, killing all 66 people on board.

No distress call was made from the plane prior to the crash.

In July, investigators said data from the cockpit voice recorder suggested the pilots were battling to put out a fire on the plane moments before it crashed.

Automated electronic messages sent by the plane indicated that smoke detectors went off in a toilet and in the avionics area below the cockpit minutes before the plane disappeared.

The recorded data are consistent with those messages, investigators said.

Egyptian investigators said at the time that part of the front section of the aircraft’s wreckage showed ‘signs of high temperature damage’ and soot.

The voice and flight data recorders were recovered from a depth of about 3,000 meters in the Mediterranean sea where the Airbus A320 crashed.

The French prosecutor’s office on June 28 opened an investigation into the possible manslaughter of all aboard flight MS804 but said it was not looking into terrorism as a possible cause of the crash at the moment.

The cause of the crash has remained unclear.