EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo disappears from radar

(Image credit: Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images)

published 19 May 2016

EgyptAir announced early Thursday that Flight 804 from Paris to Cairo has disappeared from radar. There are 56 passengers, seven crew members, and three security personnel on board. The passengers included 30 Egyptians, 15 people from France, as well as passengers from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, and several countries in the Persian Gulf. Egyptian aviation officials tell The Associated Press that the plane has crashed into the Mediterranean, with one unidentified official saying the "possibility that the plane crashed has been confirmed," as the plane hasn't landed in any of the nearby airports.

The plane, an Airbus A320, was scheduled to land at 3:15 a.m. local time, and the flight lost contact with radar at 2:30 a.m. while it was above the Mediterranean Sea, about 174 miles off the Egyptian coast. There was no distress call. Egypt and Greece have both deployed search aircraft and naval vessels to search the Mediterranean for any sign of the airplane. "We are looking everywhere on land and at sea," said Mohamed Samir, a spokesman for Egypt's military. EgyptAir says the plane was climbing at 37,000 feet and 10 miles inside Egyptian airspace when it disappeared. The airline also shared that the pilot has 6,275 flying hours, including 2,101 hours on the A320, and the assistant pilot has 2,766 flying hours. This is a developing story, and has been updated throughout.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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