EgyptAir victims 'unrecognisable' as bodies returned to Cairo
Victims of crashed EgyptAir flight MS804 have been described as "unrecognisable" as their remains have been delivered to Cairo for DNA testing and identification.
More than 20 body bags have been returned from the search and recovery mission in the Mediterranean Sea, containing the remains of several different victims as of Monday night.
The corpses and body parts are being held at the Zenhom morgue where families are going through the harrowing task of providing DNA samples to assist with identifying loved-ones, the Daily Mail reports.
"There is no complete body. There are only body parts. They are unrecognisable," a source involved in the forensic investigation said.
"But it is important for the families to be able to bury their loved-ones and to be able to visit their grave to help with the mourning process."
With the hunt for the Airbus A320's flight recorders continuing, the exact circumstances surrounding the how the plane carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew crashed on Thursday, remains a matter of speculation and debate.
Daily Mail reports aviation sources in Paris saying pilot Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair radioed Egyptian traffic controllers to say he was going to make an emergency landing due to smoke filling the cabin.
Initial reports suggested communications with the plane were lost in its final moments.
But Greece's civil aviation authority said previously stated Captain Shoukair was "in good spirits and thanked the controller in Greek" as the plane was transitioning from Greek to Egyptian airspace.
French TV station M6 reports a "conversation several minutes long" took place between Captain Shoukair and controllers, amounting to "a distress call".
Egyptian authorities have rejected the assertion, stating: "Claims made by the French TV station are not true.
"The pilot did not contact Egypt air control before the incident."
Egyptian authorities have also contradicted Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos' claims the plane 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.
Shortly before the plane disappeared from the radars, it transmitted a series of automatic messages indicating there was smoke in the cabin, France's BEA aviation safety agency said.
According to specialist magazine Aviation Herald, the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) messages read: "smoke lavatory smoke" then "avionics smoke" – referring to the plane's electronic systems. Both messages were confirmed by BEA.
But the agency did not comment on a third message cited by Aviation Herald, which indicated a "fault" with the FCU, the pilots' flight control unit in the cockpit.
A BEA spokesman 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".
Jean-Paul Troadec, a former BEA director, agreed: "All you can say... is that there was smoke. The smoke could be due to a fire in the plane following a technical problem, or it could also mean an explosion... but it is far too early to formulate hypotheses."
News break – May 24
