Whilst debris continues to be collected form the Mediterranean sea, in news just in, CBS news has reported that the black box flight data recorder from Egyptair MS804 has been found. The report states 'Egyption government sources' however they themselves have not yet released an offical statement.
In fact another Egyptian source says the black boxes have not been found leading to confusion.
The military says it has recovered personal belongings and aircraft parts.
Smoke warning in the cockpit
The Egyptian authorities are also reporting that the aircraft's ACARS system transmitted a fire alert on board from its electronics bay and possibly toilet.
ACARS also recorded various system failures.
Terrorism or catastrophic mechanical failure have been the main focus of investigators looking into the disappearance of the jet, which had 66 passengers and crew aboard but one analysts says pilot error cannot be ruled out.
The EgyptAir 180-seat Airbus A320, registration SU-GCC, was flying from Paris to Cairo when it disappeared off radar screens yesterday.
EgyptAir Flight MS804 left the French capital at midnight (6am WA time) and its transponder signal stopped at 2.33am about 240km north-west of the Egyptian port city of Alexandria while flying at 37,000ft.
It was reported last night that the crew of a Greek merchant ship in the area saw an explosion that lit up the sky.
A Greek minister claimed the plane suddenly spun sharply and swerved several times before vanishing.
This may indicate that a bomb took out the tail of the plane rendering it uncontrollable.
However John Goglia, former member of the NTSB board told AirlineRatings.com that pilot error could not be ruled out.
“Given the fly-by-wire [control system] of the Airbus, we’ve had pilots that thought they knew better in flight and popped circuit breakers and did things they shouldn’t have done and messed up the computers and led to bad outcomes,” said Mr Goglia.
“You can’t rule out a pilot doing something he shouldn’t have done. We can’t rule out a structural failure to the airplane, like losing a tail, for whatever reason. If you lose the tail on an airplane…you could end up in a stall and end up in a flat spin, which is what I read this airplane was doing.”
The 10 crew and 56 passengers aboard were made up of 30 Egyptians, 15 French, 2 Iraqis, a Briton, Belgian, Canadian, Sudanese, Chadian, Portuguese, Algerian, Kuwaiti and Saudi.
A search was launched Thursday by units of the Egyptian and Greek navy and air force. The French Government said it was also sending teams to help in the search.
EgyptAir said authorities had picked up an emergency locator transmitter signal from the aircraft.
Ihab Raslan, a spokesman for the Egyptian civil aviation agency, said the aircraft was about to enter Egyptian airspace when it disappeared but the airline and flight-tracking websites suggest it vanished just after entering the airspace boundary.
EgyptAir said the plane’s captain had 6275 flight hours behind him. The co-pilot had 2675 flight hours. The aircraft was manufactured in 2003 and Airbus said that it had accumulated about 48,000 flight hours and was powered by IAE engines.
The A320 aircraft is a 180-passenger twin engine jet boasting state of the art technology. It has a good safety record. In October, a bomb brought down a Metrojet Airbus A320 in the Sinai, killing the 224 people aboard. Islamic State claimed responsibility for that bombing.
