Human remains from Egyptair flight indicate 'explosion on board'
Human remains retrieved from the crash site of EgyptAir Flight MS804 indicate there was an explosion on board, an Egyptian forensic official has said.
"The logical explanation is that an explosion brought it down," the official told The Associated Press.
With the hunt for the Airbus A320's flight recorders continuing, the exact circumstances surrounding how the plane carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew crashed on Thursday, remains a matter of speculation and debate.
the area in the Mediterranean Sea for the Egyptair flight 804. Photo: AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli
As of Monday night, more than 20 body bags had been returned from the search and recovery mission in the Mediterranean Sea, containing the remains of several different victims.
The forensics official who spoke to AP was part of the Egyptian team investigating the crash and had personally examined the remains at a Cairo morgue.
He said 80 pieces of human remains had so far been brought to the capital, all of which were small, including the left part of a head.
“There isn't even a whole body part, like an arm or a head," the official said, adding that he could not say what caused the blast.
The comments came soon after Egyptian authorities contradicted Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos' claims that the plane had swerved before commencing a rapid descent from 37,000 to 15,000 feet before disappearing from radar.
Ehab Azmy, head of the National Air Navigation Services Company, told the Associated Press the plane was continuing at an altitude of 37,000 feet before disappearing.
"That fact degrades what the Greeks are saying about aircraft suddenly losing altitude before it vanished from radar.
"There was no turning to right or left, and it was fine when it entered Egypt’s FIR, which took nearly a minute or two before it disappeared," Azmy added.
A spokesman for France's BEA aviation safety agency said it was "far too soon to interpret and understand the cause of Thursday's accident as long as we have not found the wreckage or the flight data recorders".
