Missing EgyptAir jet may have been downed by bomb: U.S. official

EgyptAir Flight 804, the plane that went missing with 66 people on board on Thursday en route from Paris to Cairo, might have been downed by a bomb previously placed on the plane, U.S. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul told local reporters.

Though it will remain unclear what has happened until the plane's black boxes are recovered, there are early clues pointing to a possible terrorist attack, McCaul was quoted by a The Hill news daily report as saying.

"Obviously, there are concerns of terrorism," said McCaul. "That plane, from what I understand, was in Cairo, Tunis and Paris so it could have possibly been an inside job at the Paris airport or a bomb could have been placed on the plane prior to this."

"There wasn't a lot of radio traffic, so it may have been something a lot more sudden, which would indicate an explosion," he said.

EgyptAir officials said the Airbus A320 vanished 10 miles (16 km) after it entered Egyptian airspace at 2:45 a.m. Cairo local time (0045 GMT) on Thursday with 66 people aboard, including 30 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis and one each from Algeria, Belgium, Portugal, Britain, Canada, Chad, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.

EgyptAir said on Thursday that the country's foreign ministry confirmed to Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority that wreckages of the missing airplane were found near Greek Island of Karpathos.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian investigation team in cooperation with the Greek counterpart is still searching for other remains of the missing plane, EgyptAir said in a statement. Endit