Egypt’s Civil Aviation Minister, Fathi Sherif said an EgyptAir jet carrying 66 passengers and crew from Paris to Cairo which disappeared from radar over the Mediterranean south of Greece on Thursday is likely to have been downed by terrorist attack.
“The possibility of having a different action or a terror attack is higher than the possibility of having a technical failure,” Fathi explained during a press conference held in Cairo.
The Egyptian Defence ministry Thursday evening said French, Greek and Egyptian forces were still looking for the missing plane which disappeared in perfectly good weather conditions shortly after it entered Egyptian airspace on Thursday morning.
Kostas Litzerakis, head of Greece’s civil aviation department said “about seven miles before the aircraft entered the Cairo airspace, Greek controllers tried to contact the pilot but he was not responding.”
Italy, Britain and the United States have also offered to help in the search for the missing flight.
The flight was carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew members, including three security guards. The passengers were 30 Egyptians, 15 French nationals, two Iraqis and one person each from the UK, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria and Canada. At least two babies and one child were on board, the airline said.
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