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MANILA, Philippines (9th UPDATE) – EgyptAir flight MS804, flying from Paris to Cairo, vanished just minutes away from landing, the airline said Thursday, May 19.
The EgyptAir flight, an Airbus A320 plane traveling from Paris to Cairo, disappeared from radar at an altitude of 37,000, just as it entered Egyptian airspace, at around 2:30 am Cairo time.
The flight, which took off from Charles de Gaulle Airport late Wednesday, May 18, had 56 passengers, including one child and 2 babies, plus 10 crew members, the airline said – a total of 66 people on board.
There are no details yet on what caused the disappearance, but France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls "no theory can be ruled out" in the disappearance of the EgyptAir plane.
"No theory can be ruled out on the cause of this disappearance," said Valls.
EgyptAir, in a series of tweets, said that there was a distress signal from the plane's emergency devices around 4:26 am Cairo time.
Egyptian and Greek authorities have launched a search mission to look for the plane.
Over Mediterranean Sea
The plane was already flying in Egyptian airspace when it vanished off the radar, the airline added. It was expected to land 3:15 am Cairo time, and was just 280 miles from the Egyptian coast, EgyptAir added.
EgyptAir also said that the captain has logged a total of 6,275 flight hours – 2,101 of which are with the A320 aircraft – while the copilot has flown 2,766 hours.
As for the aircraft – which entered into service in 2003 – the Paris-Cairo flight was its 5th trip for the day, media reports said.
A map from flight tracking website FlightRadar showed where the plane disappeared from radar, over the Mediterranean Sea.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/EGYPTAIR">@EGYPTAIR</a> stating <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MS804?src=hash">#MS804</a> has "disappeared from radar". FR24 flight track: <a href="https://t.co/6tH4GQzOWU">https://t.co/6tH4GQzOWU</a> <a href="https://t.co/NteMuuFj1O">pic.twitter.com/NteMuuFj1O</a></p>— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) <a href="https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/733131604894318592">May 19, 2016</a></blockquote>
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According to the airline, the nationalities of the people on board are as follows:
- Egypt 30
- France 15
- Iraq 2
- United Kingdom 1
- Belgium 1
- Sudan 1
- Chad 1
- Kuwait 1
- Saudi Arabia 1
- Portugal 1
- Algeria 1
- Canada 1
For relatives of the passengers and crew, the airline has opened the following contact numbers:
- 080077770000 (landlines within Egypt)
- +202 25989320 (for calls from outside Egypt, or from mobile phones)
A command center has been set up at the Cairo airport, the airline added.
This is the second incident involving an EgyptAir plane this year.
In March, a man wearing an explosives-riddled vest hijacked an EgyptAir domestic flight and commanded it to fly to Cyprus. The explosives later turned out to be fake, and the man said he acted out of desperation to see his Cypriot ex-wife and children. – With a report from Agence France-Presse / Rappler.com