Sources within the Egyptian Investigation Committee
said late on Tuesday that the EgyptAir jet that disappeared last week did not
show technical problems before taking off from Paris.
The sources said the plane did not make contact with
Egyptian air traffic control, but Egyptian air traffic controllers were able to
see it on radar on a border area between Egyptian and Greek airspace.
He said the border area was known as KUMBI, 260
nautical miles from Cairo.
The sources said on condition of anonymity that the
plane disappeared without swerving off radar screens after less than a minute
of it entering Egyptian airspace.
The sources said air traffic controllers from Greece
and Egypt had given differing accounts of the plane's final moments.
"A report said the plane had shown no technical
problems before taking off, citing an Aircraft Technical Log signed by its
pilot before takeoff.
"The paper said EgyptAir flight 804 transmitted 11
"electronic messages" starting at 2109 GMT on May 18, about 3 1/2
hours before disappearing from radar screens with 66 passengers and crew on
board,’’ he said.
The report said the first two messages indicated the
engines were functional.
It said the third message came at 0026 GMT on May 19
and showed a rise in the temperature of the co-pilot's window.
The report said the plane kept transmitting messages
for the next three minutes before vanishing.
Meanwhile, Hisham Abdelhamid, Head of Egypt's
Forensics Authority, has dismissed as premature a suggestion that the small
size of the body parts retrieved since the Airbus 320 jet crashed indicated
there had been an explosion on board.
"The assessment is mere assumption; it is too early
to draw conclusions,” Abdelhamid said.
He said investigators were looking for clues in the
human remains and debris recovered from the Mediterranean Sea.
He said the plane and its black box recorders, which
could explain what brought down the Paris-to-Cairo flight as it entered
Egyptian air space, had not been located.
An Egyptian forensics official said on condition of
anonymity that the 23 bags of body parts had been collected, the largest no
bigger than the palm of a hand.
He said their size pointed to an explosion, although
no trace of explosives had been detected.
At least two other sources with direct knowledge of
the investigation also said it would be premature to say what caused the plane
to plunge into the sea.
"All we know is it disappeared suddenly without
making a distress call," one of them said.
"Only by analysing the black boxes or a large
amount of debris could authorities begin to form a clearer picture,’’ they
said.
Egypt official disclosed that government had
deployed a robot submarine and France has sent a search ship to help hunt for
the black boxes.
He said it was not clear whether either of them can
detect signals emitted by the flight recorders, lying in waters possibly 3,000
metres (10,000 feet) deep.
The official said the signal emitters had a battery
life of 30 days.
He, however, said five days after the plane vanished
from radar screens, air traffic controllers from Greece and Egypt were still
giving differing accounts of its last moments.
Although government officials have acknowledged the
need for international assistance, the U.S. Navy said Egypt had not formally
requested American support beyond a P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft, which was
deployed on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the relatives of the victims were giving
DNA samples at a hotel near Cairo airport on Tuesday to help identify the body
parts, their grief mixed with frustration.
Amjad Haqi, an Iraqi man whose mother Najla was
flying back from medical treatment in France, said the families were being kept
in the dark and had not been formally told that any body parts had been
recovered.
He said all the officials were concerned about was
to find the black box and the debris of the plane.
"That's their problem, not mine.
"And then they come and talk to us about
insurance and compensation. I don't care about compensation, all I care about
is to find my mother and bury her,’’ he said.
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