EgyptAir Flight 804

EgyptAir Flight 804

File:EgyptAir Airbus A320 (SU-GCC) on finals at Ataturk Airport.jpg The aircraft involved, pictured in 2011
Occurrence summary
Date	19 May 2016 (2016-05-19)
Summary	Crashed, under investigation
Site	Mediterranean Sea
Passengers	56
Crew	10
Fatalities	66 (all)
Aircraft type	Airbus A320-232
Operator	EgyptAir
Registration	SU-GCC
Flight origin	Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, France
Destination	Cairo International Airport, Cairo, Egypt

EgyptAir Flight 804 (MS804/MSR804) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to Cairo International Airport, operated by EgyptAir, which crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on 19 May 2016 at 02:33 Egypt Standard Time (UTC+2).

No mayday call was received by air traffic control, although signals that smoke had been detected in one of the aircraft's lavatories and in the avionics bay were automatically transmitted by ACARS shortly before the aircraft disappeared from radar. The cause of the disaster is under investigation.

There were 66 people on board: 56 passengers, 7 aircrew, and 3 security personnel. A multinational search and recovery operation is under way. Debris from the aircraft was found in the Mediterranean approximately 290 km (180 mi) north of Alexandria, Egypt. The search for the main wreckage is still in progress.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was an Airbus A320-232, registration SU-GCC, MSN 2088. It made its first flight on 25 July 2003, and was delivered to EgyptAir on 3 November 2003. The aircraft's optical smoke detectors have been deemed more reliable than older models on Airbus aircraft, as they produced fewer false warnings, but were sensitive to dust and some aerosols.

The flight was the aircraft's fifth that day, having flown from Asmara International Airport, Eritrea, to Cairo; then from Cairo to Tunis–Carthage International Airport, Tunisia, and back. The final completed flight of the aircraft before the crash was Flight MS803 to Paris.

Flight

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Flight route in green. The red star indicates where SU-GCC's ADS-B signal was lost, and the yellow line indicates MS804's remaining intended flightpath.

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Flight speed (orange) and altitude (blue) from 20:30 to 00:30.

The aircraft departed for Cairo International Airport from Charles de Gaulle Airport on 18 May at 23:09 (all times refer to UTC+2, used in France and Egypt at the time). It disappeared from radar while flying at flight level 370 (about 37,000 ft (11,300 m) in altitude) in clear weather, 280 km (170 mi; 150 nmi) north of the Egyptian coast, and about the same distance from Kastellorizo, over the eastern Mediterranean on 19 May at 02:30. The aircraft was lost 3 hours 25 minutes into the flight.

The aircraft was due to land at 03:05. It was originally reported that a distress signal from emergency devices was detected by the Egyptian military at 04:26, two hours after the last radar contact; officials later retracted this statement.

On the day of the crash, Panos Kammenos, the Greek defence minister, noted the aircraft changed heading 90 degrees to the left, then turned 360 degrees to the right while it dropped from Flight Level 370 to 15,000 feet (4,600 m). This information was rejected on 23 May by an Egyptian official from the National Air Navigation Services Company, who stated that there was no change in altitude and no unusual movement before the aircraft disappeared from radar. It is possible Egyptian radars were unable to track the aircraft as accurately as Greek radars due to their distance from the aircraft.

Passengers and crew

People on board by citizenship

Citizenship	No.
Algeria	1
Belgium	1
Canada	1
Chad	1
Egypt	30
France	15
Iraq	2
Kuwait	1
Portugal	1
Saudi Arabia	1
Sudan	1
United Kingdom	1
Crew	10
Some passengers had multiple citizenship. Counts are based on preliminary data.

Passengers

Fifty-six passengers from thirteen different countries were on board. Three passengers were reported to be children, including two infants. The passenger count was initially confused by the multiple citizenship status of some people on board.

Crew

The crew of ten consisted of two pilots, five flight attendants, and three security personnel. According to EgyptAir, captain Mohammed Shoukair had 6,275 hours of flying experience, including 2,101 hours on the A320, while first officer Ahmed Assem had 2,766 hours.

Search and recovery efforts

Initial efforts

File:Lockheed P-3C Orion of VP-4 takes off from Sigonella to search for EgyptAir flight MS804 on 19 May 2016.JPG

A U.S. Navy P-3C Orion takes off from Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily on 19 May to search for Flight 804

The Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry confirmed that search and rescue teams were deployed to look for the missing aircraft. Search efforts are being carried out in coordination with Greek authorities. A spokesman for the Egyptian Civil Aviation Agency stated that the aircraft most likely crashed into the sea. Greece sent a Lockheed C-130 Hercules, an Embraer EMB-145-H early warning aircraft and an Elli-class frigate to the area to participate in search and rescue efforts. France is also sending ships and aircraft to assist with the search and rescue operation. The United Kingdom sent the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship RFA Lyme Bay to assist with search and rescue efforts. The United States is providing a United States Navy Lockheed P-3C Orion to assist in the search for the aircraft.

On 19 May, a Dassault Falcon 50 maritime patrol aircraft from the French Navy's squadron 24F was deployed in the area where the Egyptian Airbus was presumed to have crashed.

Search area

On 20 May, the Egyptian Navy and Air Force discovered debris, body parts, passengers' belongings, luggage, and aircraft seats at the crash site, 290 km (180 mi; 160 nmi) off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. Two fields of debris were spotted from the air between 20 May at dusk and 23 May at dawn; one of them was 3 nmi (3.5 mi; 5.6 km) in radius. At this time, the searched area measured nearly 14,000 km² (5,400 sq mi), with the sea being 2,440 to 3,050 metres (8,000 to 10,000 ft) deep there.

External image
Slick detected by the ESA near site of disappearance

The European Space Agency announced on 20 May that it had possibly detected a 2 km-long fuel slick at , about 40 kilometres (25 mi) southeast of the last known location of Flight 804, on imagery captured by its Sentinel-1A satellite at 16:00 UTC on 19 May.

On 26 May, it was reported that signals from the aircraft's emergency locator transmitter had been detected by satellite, which narrowed the area where the main wreckage is likely located on the ocean floor to within a five-kilometre (3.1-mile) radius. An emergency locator transmitter usually activates at impact to send a distress signal; the signals are not the signals from the flight recorders (black boxes).

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that the emergency locator transmitter signal was received by satellites minutes after the airliner disappeared from radar. A "distress signal" received 2 hours after the disappearance of the aircraft, possibly originating from the emergency locator transmitter, had been reported already on 19 May; this report was denied by EgyptAir.

Flight recorders

On 22 May, an Egyptian remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) owned by the country's Oil Ministry was deployed to join the search for the missing plane. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi stated that the ROV can operate at a depth of 3,000 metres (9,840 ft). According to Egypt's chief investigator with the Civil Aviation Ministry, Ayman al-Moqadem, the ROV cannot detect signals from flight recorders (black boxes).

A French Navy D'Estienne d'Orves-class aviso ship, the Enseigne de vaisseau Jacoubet, equipped with sonar that can pick up the underwater "pings" emitted by the underwater locator beacons of the flight recorders, arrived at the possible crash site on 23 May. The French ship can deploy another ROV that can dive up to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) and is able to detect signals from black boxes.

On 26 May, Italian and French companies, including Deep Ocean Search and Alseamar, capable of executing deep-sea searches were asked by Egypt to help locate the flight recorders.

Another French vessel – the naval oceanographic research ship Laplace – left the Corsican port of Porto-Vecchio for the search area on 27 May, according to the Bureau of Investigations and Analysis. The ship can deploy three towed hydrophone arrays made by Alseamar and designed to detect the beacons from a distance of up to nearly 4 km (2.5 miles). The ship was to begin searching for the flight recorder's signals within several days of arriving at the possible crash site.

The John Lethbridge, a vessel belonging to the Mauritius-based company Deep Ocean Search equipped with a remotely operated underwater vehicle that can detect signals in depths of up to 6,000 metres (20,000 ft), and map the seabed, was contracted by Egyptian authorities. Capable of retrieving the black boxes from the seabed, it left the Irish Sea on 28 May and is expected to arrive at the area in 12 days (i.e. 9 June), after stopping in Alexandria to board Egyptian and French investigators.

On 1 June, the Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry reported that "pings" from an underwater locator beacon of one of the flight recorders had been detected by the Laplace. This was confirmed by the French Bureau of Investigations and Analysis, whose spokesperson declared the establishment of a "priority search area".

Early responses

The Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry stated on 19 May that Flight 804 was probably attacked. Two US officials believed the aircraft was downed by a bomb, and a senior official said that monitoring equipment focused on the area at the time detected evidence of an explosion on board the aircraft; other officials from multiple US agencies said they had seen no evidence of an explosion in satellite imagery and another two intelligence officials stated there is nothing yet to indicate foul play.

Investigation

According to Greek military radar data, Flight 804 veered off course shortly after entering the Egyptian flight information region. At Flight Level 370 (about 37,000 ft (11,300 m) in altitude), the aircraft made a 90-degree left turn, followed by a 360-degree right turn, and then began to descend sharply. Radar contact was lost at an altitude of about 10,000 ft (3,000 m). This information was later denied on 23 May by an Egyptian official from the National Air Navigation Services Company, who stated there was no change in altitude and no unusual movement before the aircraft disappeared from radar.

Greece's Ministry of National Defence is investigating the report of a merchant ship captain who, on 18 May, claimed to have seen a "fire in the sky" 240 km (150 mi; 130 nmi) south of the island of Karpathos.

Shortly after the disappearance, the French government began to investigate whether there had been a security breach at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

ACARS messages

• 00:26Z 3044 ANTI ICE R WINDOW
• 00:26Z 561200 R SLIDING WINDOW SENSOR
• 00:26Z 2600 SMOKE LAVATORY SMOKE
• 00:27Z 2600 AVIONICS SMOKE
• 00:28Z 561100 R FIXED WINDOW SENSOR
• 00:29Z 2200 AUTO FLT FCU 2 FAULT
• 00:29Z 2700 F/CTL SEC 3 FAULT

All times are UTC (also known as Zulu time).

Seven messages produced by the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) had been received from the aircraft between 02:26 and 02:29; contact was lost four minutes later at 02:33. The data, confirmed by France's Bureau of Investigations and Analysis, indicates that smoke may have been detected in the front of the airliner—in the front lavatory and the avionics bay beneath the cockpit. Smoke detectors of the type installed on the aircraft can also be triggered by the condensation of water vapour, producing fog, in the event of a sudden loss of pressure inside the cabin. The three windows mentioned in the data are cockpit windows. The flight control unit (FCU) is a cockpit-fitted unit that the pilot uses to enter instructions into the on-board flight computer. The spoiler elevator computer number 3 (SEC 3) is one of the three computers that controls the spoilers and elevator actuators. Two pilots—one interviewed by The Daily Telegraph, the other writing for The Australian—interpreted the data as possible evidence of a bomb. Aviation expert David Learmount of Flight International suggested that an electrical fire could have started in the aircraft's avionics compartment and that the aircrew may have been too distracted to raise the alarm with air traffic control.

On 22 May, the French television station M6 reported that, contrary to official statements, one of the pilots told Cairo air traffic control about smoke in the cabin, and decided to make an emergency descent. Later that day, the report was dismissed as false by the Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry.

On 24 May, a forensics official from Egypt's investigative team said that the remains of the victims indicate an explosion on board. The head of forensics denied the claim.

See also

• Accidents and incidents involving the Airbus A320 family

External links

• Archived live updates (no longer updated) – The Guardian
• Archived live updates (no longer updated) – BBC News
• EgyptAir MS 804 Paris Cairo (Alt link at Emergency Page) – EgyptAir
• Statements regarding the loss of Egyptair Flight 804 – Airbus, the manufacturer of the aircraft involved
• (English) (Arabic) Press releases – Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation