Egypt's forensic body denies human remains indication of blast behind plane crash

The Egyptian forensic authority denied Tuesday the circulated media reports that the analysis of body remains of some victims of a recent EgyptAir plane crash suggested an explosion ahead of its fall into the Mediterranean Sea, official MENA news agency reported.

"All published reports in this regard are bassless and mere assumptions that have neither been issued by the forensic authority nor by any forensic expert working for it," MENA quoted Hisham Abdel-Hamid, head of Egypt's Forensic Authority, as saying.

The denied reports have been released earlier by some foreign news agencies quoting unnamed sources from the forensic authority and later circulated in the Egyptian local media and social media websites.

EgyptAir Flight MS804, an Airbus A320, went missing from radar screens early Thursday en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people on board, including 30 Egyptians and 15 French.

The Egyptian armed forces announced Friday finding some personal belongings of the victims and small pieces of the plane wreckage in the Mediterranean Sea 290 kilometers north of the coastal city of Alexandria.

The Egyptian civil aviation ministry said in addition to the passengers' belongings, the army had also found some human remains and parts of airplane seats.

"The DNA samples were taken from the families of the victims to be used for identifying the bodies of the victims that were moved to Zeinhom morgue in Cairo over the past two days," the ministry said in a latest statement Tuesday.

The first report of an Egyptian investigation committee probing into the doomed flight said it was "too early" to make any judgment over the plane crash. Endit