Egyptair Airbus A320-232 plane crash
Off Alexandria, Egypt
Updated on
The Airbus A320-200 operated by Egyptair took off from from Paris, France, for a passenger flight to Cairo, Egypt. 56 passengers and 10 crewmembers were onboard. The plane was enroute at FL370 (around 11 km) over the Mediterranean Sea about 210 NM (390 km) northnorthwest of Cairo when the transponder signals of the aircraft ceased. The aircraft was located crashed in the Mediterranean Sea. All the 66 people onboard were killed.
The crew was talking normally to Greek air traffic control a few minutes prior the crash. When Air traffic Controllers attempted to hand the aircraft off to Egypt the crew did not respond, radar contact was lost 2 minutes after the first attempt to raise the crew for hand off.
The Egyptian authorities published the following elements about the accident:
- The flight recorders stopped operating while the aircraft was in cruise at an altitude of 37,000 feet;
- The aircraft systems sent ACARS messages indicating the presence of smoke in toilets and the avionics bay;
- The data from the data recorder confirms these messages;
- The playback of the cockpit voice recorder reveals, in particular, that the crew mentioned the existence of a fire on board;
- Several pieces of debris were retrieved from the accident site. Some of these had signs of having been subject to high temperatures, and traces of soot.
- A signal from an emergency locator transmitter was sent at 00:37 (source CNES (3) ) i.e. around eight minutes after the transmission of the last ACARS message;
- Data from a Greek primary radar (sent by the Greek authorities to the BEA) shows that the aeroplane had descended in a turn until collision with the surface of the water.
