An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo has disappeared from radar, Egyptian aviation officials said, with some reports saying it has crashed.
Flight MS804, which departed Paris at 11:09 p.m. CEST Wednesday, disappeared with 66 people on board including three children. EgyptAir originally stated the plane had 69 people on board. It clarified the number via Twitter.
The Associated Press reported that aviation officials had said the "possibility that the plane crashed has been confirmed." Other reports later contradicted that.
EgyptAir said on its official Twitter account that the plane's emergency devices sent a distress signal that was received at 4.26am, contradicting earlier reports.
An official source said the flight lost contact with radar at 2:45 a.m. CEST Thursday. A tweet from EgyptAir stated the plane was in Egyptian airspace when it disappeared. Exact details remain unclear, with a lot of misinformation being reported.
EgyptAir confirmed on Facebook the nationalities of the passengers, with the majority of those on board French and Egyptian. There were people from 10 other nationalities on board.
An EGYPTAIR official declared that EGYPTAIR A320 aircraft in its flight number MS804 lost contact with radar above the Mediterranean Sea.
Ahmed Abdel, the vice chairman of EgyptAir Holding Company, told CNN there were 56 passengers, 3 security personnel, 2 cockpit members and 5 cabin crew on the plane.
He added that there was no distress call from the plane prior to its disappearance. "Search and rescue has been dispatched and are now at the scene," Abdel added. "Daylight has just broken in Egypt around an hour ago, so we should get some information within the next hour."
He said there was no special cargo or dangerous goods on board.
Around 15 family members of passengers on board the missing flight arrived at Cairo airport. Airport authorities brought doctors to the scene after several distressed family members collapsed.
An informed source at EGYPTAIR declared that its flight number MS804 had 56 passengers on board.
A search and rescue operation is underway. "Special teams from the Egyptian Armed Forces are at site for inspection and rescue," a tweet from EgyptAir confirmed.
Greece joined the search and rescue operation for the EgyptAir flight with two aircraft: one C-130 and one early warning aircraft, officials at the Hellenic National Defense General Staff said. They said one frigate was also heading to the area, and helicopters are on standby on the southern island of Karpathos for potential rescue or recovery operations.
EgyptAir claimed the pilot flying the aircraft has 6,274 hours of flying experience, while it said the co-pilot has 2,766 flying hours experience. According to Flightradar24, MS804 was operated by an Airbus A320-232.
#MS804 operated by an Airbus A320-232 (SU-GCC), delivered in 2003. jetphotos.net/aircraft/A32X-…
.@EGYPTAIR stating #MS804 has "disappeared from radar". FR24 flight track: flightradar24.com/data/flights/m…
In March, EgyptAir was embroiled in another mid-air incident, when a man hijacked a plane so he could see his estranged ex-wife in Cyprus. The plane was declared "hijacked" by the airline as it flew from an internal flight from Alexandria to Cairo, Egypt with 50 people on board.
In 1999, EgyptAir 990, a Boeing 767, was downed by its co-pilot during a flight to Cairo from New York, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The Airbus A320 has an enviable safety record but it has been involved in the recent crashes of Air Asia 8501 over the Java Sea and the downing of Germanwings 9525.
All those on the plane were eventually evacuated and the incident ended peacefully.
In October 2015, MetroJet flight 9268 exploded over Sinai, Egypt. The plane was carrying 217 passengers and seven crew members as it travelled from Egypt to Russia. In February, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi finally confirmed what many people had speculated: the plane was brought down by an act of terrorism. It is widely believed there was a bomb on board the plane.
This story is developing.
— Additional reporting by Jenni Ryall and the Associated Press.
UPDATE: May 19, 2016, 7:44 a.m. BST
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