Debris Spotted F-rom EgyptAir Passenger Plane After Crash En Route to Cairo

A search plane has identified two items in the Mediterranean Sea thought to be debris f-rom EgyptAir Flight 804 that disappeared early Thursday while en route f-rom Paris to Cairo with 66 people on board.

Greek military officials said that the items were located by an Egyptian search plane 230 miles southeast of the Island of Crete, according to an Associated Press report.

French President Francois Hollande said that the flight had crashed but the cause of the disaster had yet to be determined. The airline and Egyptian government officials said they had not yet determined what happened to the plane. The Terror and technical problems

“We will draw conclusions when we have the truth about what happened,” said Hollande, according to the BBC. “Whether it was an accident, or whether it was—and it’s something that is on our minds—terrorism.”

Civil aviation spokesman Ihab Raslan said earlier the plane vanished about 10 miles after it had entered Egyptian airspace, likely crashing in the Mediterranean, the Associated Press reports.

Greek defense officials said that within a two-minute period the plane made a 90-degree turn and d-ropped f-rom 37,000 feet to 15,000 feet before making another 60 degree turn, according to a Guardian report. The plane then d-ropped to 10,000 feet before disappearing.

Reuters reports that Greek aircraft and naval vessels are participating in the search. French authorities have also offered assistance and have set up a crisis center at the French embassy in Cairo according to France 24.

A Greek defense ministry source told Reuters that authorities were investigating the sighting of a ‘flame in the sky’ by a merchant ship captain some 130 nautical miles south of the island of Karpathos. Agence France-Presse cited a Greek airport source sayingthe plane had crashed off the island.

Flight MS 804, which departed f-rom Paris C-harles de Gaulle Airport at 11:09 p.m. and was due to land in Cairo at 3:15 a.m. local time, “disappeared f-rom radar” en route, according to EgyptAir’s official Twitter account.

The airline later said a distress signal had been received at 4:26 a.m., possibly transmitted f-rom a tracking beacon on the plane after the crash, the Guardian reports.

Among the 66 on board the Airbus A320 are a child and two infants as well as three security personnel and seven cabin crew. EgyptAir has also posted a breakdown of the nationalities of passengers on the flight, including 30 Egyptians and 15 French passengers. It said that it was providing doctors and translators to passenger’s relatives and loved ones gathered at Cairo Airport.