Update, 5:40 p.m.: And now some U.S. officials are walking back reports that there was evidence of an explosion. Reuters reported that a U.S. review of satellite imagery showed no signs of an explosion, according to multiple U.S. agencies. On top of that, Greek officials are now saying that the plane has not been found yet. It’s clear that there is a lot of conflicting information out there.
Update, 1:43 p.m.: NBC reports that the U.S. has some evidence that an explosion took place on Flight 804.
Dilanian added that the evidence involves satellite data, including images.
Update, 11:10 a.m.: Greek authorities say that debris that appears to be from Flight 804, including two life jackets, has been found in the Mediterranean.
Update, 8:10 a.m.: French President François Hollande says that he can “confirm” that Flight 804 crashed at sea but did not give any details on how the conclusion was reached or whether wreckage had been found.
It appears that the plane’s last contact with the ground took place at 2:39 a.m. Cairo time while it was roughly 175 miles away from the Egyptian coast. Greece’s defense minister says the aircraft, an Airbus A320, made “sudden swerves” and fell 22,000 feet before it disappeared from radar. If that information holds up, it would suggest that the flight was not brought down by a bomb.
Original post, 1:52 a.m.: A Paris-Cairo EgyptAir flight carrying 66 people disappeared off radar over the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday morning, authorities say. Flight 804 was at an altitude of 37,000 feet at approximately 2:45 a.m. local time (which is six hours ahead of Eastern time) when it lost touch with air traffic controllers. The plane was within Egyptian airspace when it disappeared, EgyptAir says, and reportedly did not make a distress call; Greek and Egyptian personnel are launching a search near its last known location. The BBC says there was not any rough weather in the area of the plane’s disappearance.
There have been two high-profile security breaches on Egyptian flights in the past year: An emotionally disturbed man hijacked a domestic EgyptAir flight in March, diverting it to Cyprus, while a Metrojet flight carrying 224 people to St. Petersburg crashed shortly after its departure from Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh Airport on Oct. 31, 2015, in what is believed to have been an ISIS bombing.
