EgyptAir Flight 804 Lost Over Mediterranean Sea
May 19, 2016
This morning, an EgyptAir flight bound for Cairo, the capital of Egypt, disappeared from radar over the Mediterranean Sea. EgyptAir Flight 804 took off from Paris on May 18, Wednesday night (11:09 local time), with 66 people aboard—56 passengers, 7 crew members, and 3 airline security workers. At around 2:30 this morning, the flight made normal contact with air traffic controllers as it passed by Greece. At 2:37, the problem began as the plane made erratic turns and suddenly dropped in altitude—from 37,000 feet to 15,000 and then to 9,000 feet (11,300 meters to 4,600 and then to 2,700 meters)—before disappearing from radar.
Greece and Egypt combined forces to mount a search-and rescue mission in the Aegean Sea. Greek authorities have reported spotting wreckage from the crash southeast of Crete and about 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of the Greek island of Karpathos (one of the Dodecanese Islands). It is too early to assign a cause for the crash, but the plane, an Airbus A320, has an excellent safety record. Some experts speculated that one likely cause was terrorism.