Off the wire
• Three E. China officials under investigation  • Weather forecast for world cities -- May 19  • China to triple spending on tourism by 2020  • Weather forecast for major Chinese cities, regions -- May 19  • Senegalese president says national dialogue to start on May 28  • Malaysia-China industrial parks to play bigger role under Belt and Road initiative: official  • Egypt, France FMs exchange condolences over missing passenger jet: ministry  • 1st Ld-Writethru: Former senior political advisor in E China stands trial for bribery  • U-20 soccer World Cup yields positive return for New Zealand  • New Passenger Terminal Building to be constructed at Singapore's Seletar Airport  
You are here: 　 Home

5th LD Writethru: EgyptAir confirms flight off radar, joint rescue underway

Xinhua, May 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Egyptian army said its rescue units did not receive any distress message from Egyptair MS804 that disappeared from radar screens early morning en route from Paris to Cairo, the Egyptian military spokesman said on Thursday.

Earlier, EgyptAir quoted one of its officials as saying that the rescue units of the Egyptian army got a distress message from the missing plane.

However, Military Spokesman Mohamed Samir said that "the Armed Forces assert that they have not received any distress message from the missing plane."

Meanwhile, in a statement published on its Twitter account, EgyptAir told media to be assured of the information they post or release and to abide by the official press releases issued by EgyptAir media center.

The airliner denies all misleading information published by news websites and on the social channels regarding the cause of the disappearance, saying it hasn't been yet confirmed.

The plane, an Airbus 320, was off the radar at 2:45 a.m. Cairo local time (0045 GMT).

Information on the location of the disappearance has been confusing as of now. A source from the Egyptian military said that the location is inside the Greek airspace while EgyptAir announced earlier that the plane was 10 miles (16 km) inside Egyptian airspace when it disappeared from the radar.

Egypt said the plane carried "15 French, 30 Egyptians, one British, one Belgian, two Iraqis, one Kuwaiti,one Saudi, one Sudanese, one Chadian, one Portuguese, one Algerian and one Canadian."

Earlier, it said the missing plane was carrying 56 passengers besides three security personnel and seven crew members -- 66 people in total.

The Egyptian army said it is currently cooperating with the Greek authorities in search of the missing plane.

An Egyptian presidential spokesman said earlier in the morning that President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi will head an emergency meeting with the National Security Council over the crisis.

Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail arrived at EgypAir crisis center at Cairo airport to catch up with the latest development concerning the missing plane.

"We can neither exclude nor confirm any possibility for the time being," the prime minister told reporters at Cairo airport when asked about the possibility of terrorist activity behind the vanished plane.

"The search procedure is going on and the causes will be found out accordingly," he added.

The Egyptian aviation minister also cut his visit to Saudi Arabia and returned home to coordinate the handling of the crisis with concerned authorities.

The aviation ministry will hold a press conference later in the afternoon to provide the latest development about the missing plane.

EgyptAir said the pilot of the missing plane had 6,275 hours of flying experience, including 2,101 hours on the same model, while the co-pilot had 2,766 flying hours.

Manufactured in 2003, the plane left Paris at 11:09 pm local time (2109 GMT) on Wednesday night for a three-hour-and-45-minute journey.

EgyptAir also said concerned authorities and an inspection team which involves Egyptian and Greek military jets, have launched a search operation. The airline is following the situation through through an integrated operation center. Endi