Rescuers have arrived at the location where they believe the plane could have gone down. “Massive search underway, Greek authorities say they are participating,” he says.
While early reports said the plane disappeared 40-50 miles off Egypt, the figure now being given is around 175 miles, “basically in the middle of the Mediterranean.”
“Too soon to point in any one direction but it’s at a very safe point in flight at cruise altitude so this is very ominous,” says aviation analyst Peter Goelz.
Advertisement
“Egyptians do have the resources, they’re perfectly capable of conducting the investigation, it will be a matter of pride and they’ll take the lead.
The highest priority is the search and rescue, and parallel to that is the investigation, which has already started,” he added.
People have started gathering at Cairo airport where it is just before 8 a.m. local time.
CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest says the Airbus A320 is equipped with the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), that should transmit out faults in the case of a crisis.
“If there is an emergency, fire on board, failure of computers, then ACARS is usally set to send out that info in real time,” he says.
“My guess is that EgyptAir is going through their files and talking to the provider of ACARS to find out what information they have.”
EgyptAir has just tweeted the nationalities of some of those on board missing flight 804:
15 French
30 Egyptian
1 British
1 Belgian
2 Iraq
1 Kuwaiti
1 Saudi
1 Chad
1 Portuguese
1 Algerian
1 Canadian
1 Sudanese
There were also 10 staff on board