EgyptAir flight MS804 disappears from radar between Paris and Cairo

Wondering if there is a connection between this incident and the recent eruption of Mount Etna.
Aircraft and volcanic ash don't mix very well.
 
It seems that apart of the Egypt Air flight disappearance, two more plane crashes happened around the world about 12 hours apart:

Egypt Air flight seems to have disappeared on May 19 around 00:45 UTC

Previously, May 18 22:30 UTC, B-52 bomber crashes in Guam, crew make it out alive

The US Air Force said a B-52 bomber crashed at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam shortly after takeoff during a training exercise on Thursday. All seven crew members exited the plane before it burst into flames, and no injuries were reported.

Anderson Air Force Base’s Public Affairs Office confirmed that the accident occurred on Thursday morning at 8:30 am
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And a bit earlier yesterday, May 18 around 10:00 UTC, Azerbaijan plane crashes in Afghanistan, 7 dead

Silk Way Airlines Antonov AN-12, performing a cargo flight from Camp Dwyer to an unspecified location (Afghanistan) with 9 crew, lost height after an engine had failed on departure from Camp Dwyer before 19:00L (14:30Z). Seven occupants perished in the resulting impact with terrain. Two Ukrainian crew members survived with serious injuries and have been taken to a hospital in critical condition.

Azerbaijan's Accident Investigation Commission dispatched an investigating team to Camp Dwyer and is going to investigate (Silk Way is based in Azerbaijan). The crew consisted of an Uzbekistan citizen (Captain), 3 Ukrainians and 5 Azeris.
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http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/egyptair-jet-disappears-over-mediterranean-sea/ar-BBte2SM?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=ASUDHP

An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo is thought to have crashed into the sea with 56 passengers and 10 crew on board - including one British national.

Flight MS804 departed the French capital at 11.09pm (CEST) before vanishing.

The airline said the plane lost contact with radar at 2.45am Cairo time (1.45am BST). Its final contact with air control was 10 minutes earlier.

At that stage the Airbus A320, which was 13 years old, was about three hours and 40 minutes into the four-hour journey and flying at 37,000ft.

The airline said the plane had been 10 miles into Egyptian airspace, over the Mediterranean Sea, when it disappeared.

However, Egyptian civil aviation authority spokesman Ihab Raslan told Sky News Arabia that it was about to enter Egyptian airspace when it disappeared. He said the plane had most likely crashed into the sea.

Military search and rescue teams picked up an automated signal from the plane's emergency beacon at 4.26am Cairo time (3.26am BST) - around 90 minutes after it was supposed to land in Cairo. It is thought this may have been triggered on impact.

Thirty Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis, a Belgian, Kuwaiti, Saudi, Sudanese, Chadian, Algerian, Portuguese and Canadian are among the passengers which also included one child and two babies.

Greece has joined special teams from the Egyptian armed forces in the search for the jet and deployed one C-130. an early warning aircraft and a frigate, while helicopters are on standby.

Greek civil aviation authorities said the jet disappeared off its radar two minutes after leaving its airspace. Prior to that, its air traffic controllers spoke to the pilot who reported no problems.

Ahmed Abdel, the vice-chairman of EgyptAir holding company, told CNN there had been no distress calls from the plane.

The New York Times quoted Ehab Mohy el-Deen, the head of Egypt's air navigation authority, as saying: "They did not radio for help or lose altitude. They just vanished."

The airline said the plane's pilot had flown 6,275 hours - including 2,101 hours on the same model - while the co-pilot had done 2,766 hours.

Commercial airline pilot Chris McGee told Sky News there were only two circumstances that would prevent a pilot from contacting air traffic control.

"One would be if there was human intervention... the second possibility... is that something has occurred on the flight deck. The first thing you are taught is fly the airplane first, handle the problem, and then communicate. So if you have got your hands full that is potentially why you wouldn't talk to air traffic."

With its ancient archaeological sites and Red Sea resorts, Egypt is a popular destination for tourists.

But its tourism industry was badly hit following the downing of a Russian jet last year with the deaths of all 224 on board, the ongoing Islamist insurgency and a string of bomb attacks in the country.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "Following reports that Egypt Air flight MS804 has gone missing en route from Paris to Cairo, we are in urgent contact with the local authorities in Paris and Cairo to obtain further information"

France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls saiid "no theory can be ruled out on the cause of this disappearance", as President Francois Hollande called a crisis meeting.
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Anam Cara said:
Egyptian aviation officials have told the Associated Press that the EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo with 66 passengers and crew on board has crashed.

They gave no further details on where the plane went down, but it was last spotted on radar 10 miles into Egyptian airspace over the Mediterranean.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/19/egyptair-flight-from-paris-to-cairo-disappears-from-radar/
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Just read in Dutch media that Egyptian aviation officials are not able to confirm yet that it has crashed. No parts of the plane have been found yet.

Bobo08 said:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-egyptair-airplane-idUSKCN0YA08W

A Greek defense ministry source said authorities were also investigating an account from the captain of a merchant ship who reported a ‘flame in the sky’ some 130 nautical miles south of the island of Karpathos.

The weather was clear at the time the plane disappeared, according to weather reports.
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Other news sites also report: "Greek authorities are investigating claims that residents of a Greek island saw a ball of fire, or flame in the sky around the time the flight lost contact with radar."
 
_http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/may/19/egyptair-plane-cairo-paris-live-updates

Greece issues timeline

Greece’s civil aviation department has issued this timeline on MS804’s last moments and attempts to reach it:

02:24: EgyptAir flight 804 from Paris to Cairo enters Greek airspace, air traffic controller permissions it for the remainder of its course.

02:48: The flight is transferred to the next air traffic control sector and is cleared for exit from Greek airspace. “The pilot was in good spirits and thanked the controller in Greek.”

03:27: Athens air traffic control tries to contact the aircraft to convey information on the switch of communications and control from Athens to Cairo air traffic. In spite of repeated calls, the aircraft does not respond, whereupon the air traffic controller calls the distress frequency, without a response from the aircraft.

03:29: It is above the exit point (from Greek airspace).

03:39:40: The aircraft signal is lost, approximately 7 nautical miles south/southeast of the KUMBI point, within Cairo FIR.
Immediately the assistance of radars of the Hellenic Air Force is requested to detect the target, without result.

03:45: The processes of search and rescue are initiated, simultaneously informing the Flight Information Region of Cairo.

................

3m ago
11:53
No debris has been found, according to another update from the Greek defence minister via Reuters. Greece has also asked for help on sifting through satellite information on the flight.

..............

16m ago
11:50
'Sudden swerves' before crash

The plane made “sudden swerves” before it came down, the Greek defence minister has said according to Reuters.

..................

22m ago
11:45
Reuters has this first take on Hollande’s statement, plus news that French prosecutors have launched an investigation.

No hypothesis can so far be ruled out about the fate of an EgyptAir plane that went missing on its way from Paris to Cairo, French President Francois Hollande said.

“Unfortunately the information we have ... confirms to us that the plane came down and is lost,” Hollande said. “No hypothesis can be ruled out, nor can any be favoured over another.”

Separately, Paris prosecutors said that they were opening an investigation into matter
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Maybe another microburst?
 
not sure if it is related, but this thursday afternoon Swedish Airspace is closed due to communications problems ...: http://www.thelocal.se/20160519/stockholm-airspace-closed
 
According to director of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov, the crash was "most likely" caused by a terrorist attack/

Russia's FSB chief says terrorist attack may be behind EgyptAir flight crash
http://tass.ru/en/world/876793

MINSK, May 19. /TASS/. The EgyptAir Flight MS804 may have crashed as a result of a terrorist attack, director of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov said on Thursday.

"Unfortunately, another incident with an aircraft of Egypt airlines took place today. It was most likely a terrorist attack that killed 66 people from 12 countries," Bortnikov said at the session of the Council of heads of security and special services of CIS member countries.

Bortnikov called on "all interested parties, including our partners in Europe, to take joint measures to identify persons involved in this terrible attack."

The EgyptAir A320 aircraft en route from Paris to Egypt vanished 10 miles into Egyptian airspace while flying at around 11,000 meters. The aircraft disappeared from radars at 2:45am local time (3:45am Moscow time), 20 minutes before it was due to land. French President Francois Holland confirmed earlier that the plane had crashed.

According to latest reports, there were 56 passengers and 10 crew onboard. According to the passenger list provided by EgyptAir, 15 French citizens and 30 Egyptians were onboard, along with citizens of UK, Belgium, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria, Canada

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered deep condolences over the crash of an Egyptian plane, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says, the circumstances of this crash are being investigated.
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Putin expresses deep condolences on Egypt plane’s crash
http://tass.ru/en/politics/876676

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered deep condolences over the crash of an Egyptian plane, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.

"The Kremlin and President Putin express deep condolences over the crash of the Egyptian plane," Peskov said.

"Now the circumstances of this crash are being investigated, various reports are coming, there is no full picture," he added.

Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail has not ruled out that a terrorist attack might have been carried out onboard the EgyptAir A320 jet.


The EgyptAir A320 plane en route from Paris to Cairo, disappeared from radars earlier, carried 56 passengers and 10 crew onboard.
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EgyptAir plane sent out SOS message - aviation ministry
http://tass.ru/en/world/876639

CAIRO, May 19. /TASS/. An SOS message has been sent out from the missing A320 passenger plane of EgyptAir company, Egypt’s civil aviation ministry said on Thursday.

"The military received an SOS message from the plane emergency devices," it said.

Egypt’s civil aviation ministry has confirmed that A320 passenger jet of EgypAir airline en route from Paris to Cairo has crashed, Sky News Arabiya TV channel has said.

The airline said the distress signal was received at 04.26 a.m. local time (0226 GMT) when the plane disappeared from radars and a search for it was launched.

The plane vanished 10 miles into Egyptian airspace while flying at around 11,000 meters. The aircraft disappeared from radars at 2:45am local time (3:45am Moscow time), 20 minutes before it was due to land.

The EgyptAir A320 plane en route from Paris to Cairo, disappeared from radars earlier, carried 56 passengers and 10 crew onboard
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No distress signals received from disappeared EgyptAir plane — Egyptian authorities
http://tass.ru/en/world/876638

The EgyptAir A320 plane en route from Paris to Cairo that has disappeared from radars earlier today had not sent distress signals, Sky News Arabia reported on Thursday citing Egyptian authorities.

The TV station also cited Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy as saying that information is being collected about the technical conditions of the aircraft.

The plane vanished 10 miles into Egyptian airspace while flying at around 11,000 meters. The aircraft disappeared from radars at 2:45am local time (3:45am Moscow time), 20 minutes before it was due to land.


Several scenarios could explain the mysterious disappearance of an EgyptAir flight between Paris and Cairo early Thursday, but experts say a terrorist attack is the most likely.
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TERROR ATTACK ON EGYPTAIR FLIGHT MOST LIKELY !
http://novorossia.today/terror-attack-egyptair-flight/

Both France and Egypt have been leading targets for Islamist extremists in recent months.

In October, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for bombing an A321 plane belonging to Russian charter company Metrojet that crashed into the Sinai desert on its way from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg, killing 224 passengers and crew.

Experts say the chances of a mechanical malfunction in the case of Thursday’s EgyptAir disappearance are slim.

“A major technical fault — the explosion of a motor, for instance — seems improbable,” said aeronautics expert Gerard Feldzer, underlining that the A320 in question was “relatively new”, having entered service in 2003.

In addition, the A320 has an excellent safety record as the best-selling, medium-range airliner in the world. An A320 takes off or lands every 30 seconds around the world, Feldzer said.

“It’s a modern plane, the incident happened in mid-flight in extremely stable conditions. The quality of the maintenance and the quality of the plane are not in question in this incident,” Jean-Paul Troadec, former director of France’s aviation Bureau of Investigation and Analysis, told Europe 1 radio.

EgyptAir “is a company with authorisation to operate in Europe, so it is not on any blacklist,” he added

Experts also say it is unlikely that the plane was shot down from the ground, as was the case with the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that went down over Ukraine in July 2014, or from the sea as occurred in July 1988 when the US Navy blew up an Iran Air passenger flight by mistake.

The EgyptAir plane was flying at 37,000 feet (11,000 metres) and disappeared about 130 nautical miles off the Greek island of Karpathos.

That would put it out of reach of portable rocket launchers used by several militant groups in the Middle East.

“We cannot exclude the possibility that it was shot down by another aircraft by mistake, but it is likely we would already know,” said Feldzer.

The region around northern Egypt, including the Israeli and Gazan coastlines, is “one of the most monitored regions in the world, including by satellite. It would be very difficult to hide this kind of information,” he added.

– No distress signal –

That leaves a terrorist attack as the most likely possibility, not least because it appears that no distress signal was sent from the aircraft.

“A technical problem, a fire or a motor malfunction, doesn’t cause an instantaneous accident and the crew has time to react,” said Troadec.

“Here, the crew didn’t say anything.”

If a bombing is established, the question for investigators will be how a device was smuggled aboard a flight taking off from France’s busiest airport, Paris Charles de Gaulle, where security has been on high alert since last year’s jihadist attacks in the French capital.

“A bomb placed on board at Roissy or in Cairo is always possible because it’s difficult to make your airport 100 percent watertight, even in an airport with such tight surveillance as Roissy (Charles de Gaulle),” said Feldzer.

“The first thing to do is to recover debris that will give us some indications on the accident… to see if there are any traces of explosives.”
 
AP reported:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_EGYPT_PLANE_THE_LATEST?SITE=VANOV&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


1:05 p.m. [local time]

Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos says the EgyptAir flight made abrupt turns, suddenly lost altitude just before vanishing from radar shortly after entering Cairo's air traffic control area of responsibility.

Kammenos said the aircraft was 10-15 miles inside the Egyptian area and at an altitude of 37,000 feet. He says: "It turned 90 degrees left and then a 360- degree turn toward the right, dropping from 38,000 to 15,000 feet and then it was lost at about 10,000 feet," he said.

Greek civil aviation authorities say all appeared fine with the flight until the time when air traffic controllers were to hand it over to their Egyptian counterparts. The pilot did not respond to their calls, and the aircraft then vanished from radars.

3:05 p.m.

A Greek military official says an Egyptian search plane has located two orange items believed to be from the missing EgyptAir flight.

The official says the items were found 230 miles (370 kilometers) south-southeast of the island of Crete but still within the Egyptian air traffic control area. One of the items was oblong, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations.
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ADDED:

Not sure if there is any connection, but 19 May is in Turkey a commemoration day of Atatürk "celebrated to commemorate Mustafa Kemal's landing at Samsun on May 19, 1919, which is regarded as the beginning of the Turkish War of Independence in the official historiography." (Wikipedia)

But it was also established a day of commemorating the the Greek Pontus genocide in the Ottoman Empire:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide

Following an initiative of MPs of the so-called "patriotic" wing of the ruling PASOK party's parliamentary group and like-minded MPs of conservative New Democracy,[104] the Greek Parliament passed two laws on the fate of the Ottoman Greeks; the first in 1994 and the second in 1998. The decrees were published in the Greek Government Gazette on 8 March 1994 and 13 October 1998 respectively. The 1994 decree affirmed the genocide in the Pontus region of Asia Minor and designated 19 May (the day Mustafa Kemal landed in Samsun in 1919) a day of commemoration,[105] while the 1998 decree affirmed the genocide of Greeks in Asia Minor as a whole and designated 14 September a day of commemoration.[106] These laws were signed by the President of Greece but were not immediately ratified after political interventions.
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Funny, just today I'm annotating the session from 1996 when the EgyptAir flight 800 was first mentioned.

Trans World Airlines Flight 800 (TWA 800), was a Boeing 747-100 which exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, on July 17, 1996, at about 8:31 p.m. EDT, 12 minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport on a scheduled international passenger flight to Rome, with a stopover in Paris.[1]:1 All 230 people on board were killed in the third-deadliest aviation accident in U.S. territory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800
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And, of course, later on, the Cs had plenty to say about that crash.

Anyway, in respect of this rush to judgment, I'm reminded of what Victor Clube said:
"We do not need the celestial threat to disguise Cold War intentions; rather we need the Cold War to disguise celestial intentions!" ~ British astronomer Victor Clube, author of The Cosmic Serpent and The Cosmic Winter, in a report commissioned by the U.S. Air Force
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Anyway, strange times.

(Oh, today is also the anniversary of my grandfather's death.)
 
I found one article that mentions a fireball

Reports of fireball amid search for missing EgyptAir flight


Greek authorities said they found pieces of wreckage from the plane in Egyptian territorial waters, near the Greek islands of Crete and Karpathos respectively.

Speaking at a press conference in Paris, French President Francoise Holland said the plane went down at sea.
He added that he planned to co-operate closely with his Greek and Egyptian counterparts, saying that "no hypothesis is being ruled out and none is being favoured" on the cause of the crash.

The Greek defense minister, Panos Kammenos, said the plane swerved suddenly just after it entered Egyptian airspace and plunged into the Mediterranean.

EgyptAir tweeted that the Airbus A320-232 was at an altitude of 37,000 feet when contact was lost about 16km inside of Egyptian airspace while it was over the Mediterranean Sea about 450km from the coast.

It had departed Charles Du Gaulle airport in Paris, France at 23:09 GMT (11.09AM NZT) and it was expected to land in Cairo about 3:15am Cairo time.

The Egyptian Army is now denying receiving a distress call from a missing A320, telling Egyptian media that earlier EgyptAir reports were wrong.

Greek authorities are investigating claims that residents of a Greek island saw a ball of fire, or flame in the sky around the time the flight lost contact with radar.

Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail has arrived at the crisis centre at Cairo Airport, and is said to be issuing guidance to concerned authorities.

He said it was too early to say whether a technical problem or a terror attack caused the plane to crash. "We cannot rule anything out," he told reporters at Cairo airport.

The nationalities of the passengers on board the aircraft were revealed by the airline this evening, and are: 15 French, 30 Egyptian, one Briton, one Belgian, two Iraqis, one Kuwaiti, one Saudi, one Sudanese, one Chadian, one Portuguese and one Algerian.

Among those on board were a child and two infants, the airline said, and the 10 crew members included 3 security staff.

The aircraft was built in 2003 and the airline tweeted that it was worth mentioning that the aircraft's pilot had logged 6275 flight hours, including 2101 hours flying the same model of plane, while the co-pilot had logged 2766 hours.

"Egypt air is following the situation closely with the competent authorities through the integrated operations centre," it tweeted in Arabic.

Search and rescue teams, including Egyptian armed forces, are currently searching for the aircraft, and include teams from both Egypt and Greece.

A number of private vessels had also been enlisted to search for the aircraft in the Mediterranean Sea.
EgyptAir tweeted that was trying to arrange to fly passenger's families closer to the airport, and said it had been providing doctors, translators and all necessary services to the families.

The airline has set up a phone number for relatives of those on board looking for information - +202 259 89320 outside Egypt or from mobiles in Egypt, or 0800 7777 0000 from any landline within Egypt.

An EgyptAir plane was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus in March. A man who admitted to the hijacking and is described by Cypriot authorities as "psychologically unstable" is in custody in Cyprus.

The incident renewed security concerns months after a Russian passenger plane was blown out of the sky over the Sinai Peninsula.

The Russian plane crashed in Sinai on October 31, killing all 224 people on board.

Moscow said it was brought down by an explosive device, and a local branch of the extremist Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for planting it.

In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 1990 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, killing all 217 people aboard.

US investigators filed a final report that concluded its co-pilot switched off the autopilot and pointed the Boeing 767 downward, but Egyptian officials rejected the notion of suicide altogether, insisting some mechanical reason caused the crash.
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Well, let's face it, nowadays, there's no chance of sabotage without the participation of one or another state level organization. So even if they go on a rant about terrorists, we can be sure that it is State Terrorism to get the sheeple in line.

On the other hand, if it was a fireball/meteor, they'll probably say it was terrorism just to cover up that fact a la Victor Clube's remark. Considering the number of rather significant fireballs recently, I think I would opt for that explanation first.

But, of course, I find it highly synchronous that this one goes down almost exactly 20 years after Flight 800.
 
A video of the event was reported at Pravda Report:



EgyptAir A320 passenger plane en route from Paris to Cairo went off radar screens on May 19. According to airline representatives, there were 66 people on board, citizens of 12 countries.

The Egyptian authorities reported that the plane crashed. According to preliminary data, the aircraft fell into the Mediterranean Sea.

A video, which is believed to show the crashing A320 aircraft, has appeared on the Internet in the afternoon of May 19.

Earlier, it was reported that the captain of a Greek merchant ship saw "fire in the sky" at about the same time and in the area, where EgyptAir jetliner crashed.

The Greek authorities announced the area, where the search for the missing aircraft is conducted a no-fly zone, representatives of the Greek Embassy in Cairo said. The embassy noted that the search area was determined by the last signal received from the A320.

French expert and former pilot of civil aviation Gerard Feltzer said that in all probability, the plane fell apart in the air very quickly. This could be caused by both a technical explosion, and a bomb blast. According to the expert, the bomb could be delivered on board together with food for passengers.
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Video of EgyptAir A320 crash appears
 
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