Explosion on plane ‘mere assumption’
Print Edition
A SUGGESTION that the small size of body parts retrieved after an EgyptAir plane crashed last week indicated an explosion on board was yesterday dismissed by the head of Egypt’s forensics authority.
Investigators struggling to work out why the Airbus 320 jet vanished from radar screens last Thursday, with 66 passengers and crew on board, are looking for clues in the human remains and debris recovered from the Mediterranean Sea so far.
The plane and its black box recorders, which could explain what brought down the Paris-Cairo flight as it entered Egyptian air space, have not been located.
An Egyptian forensic official said 23 bags of body parts have been collected since Sunday, the largest of them no bigger than the palm of a hand. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said their size suggested there had been an explosion although no trace of explosives had been detected.
But Hisham Abdelhamid, head of Egypt’s forensics authority, said that assessment was “mere assumption” and that it was too early to draw conclusions.
At least two other sources with direct knowledge of the investigation also said it would be premature to say what caused EgyptAir flight 804 to plunge into the sea.
French investigators say the plane sent a series of warnings indicating that smoke had been detected on board as well as other possible computer faults shortly before it disappeared.
The signals did not indicate what may have caused the smoke, and aviation experts have said that neither deliberate sabotage nor a technical fault could be ruled out.
Investigators rely on debris, bags and clothes as well as chemical analysis to detect the imprints of an explosion, according to people involved in two previous probes where deliberate blasts were involved.
An Egyptian team formed by the civil aviation ministry is conducting the technical investigation and three officials from France’s BEA air accident investigation agency have been in Cairo since Friday, with an expert from Airbus, to assist.
Egypt has deployed a robot submarine and France has sent a search ship to help hunt for the black boxes, but it is not clear whether either of them could detect signals emitted by the flight recorders, lying in waters that is possibly 3,000 meters deep.
The signal emitters have a battery life of just 30 days.
Five days after the plane vanished off radar screens, Egyptian and Greek officials — who monitored the flight before it crossed into Egypt’s airspace — have given differing accounts of its last moments.
Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said on Thursday that Greek radar had picked up sharp swings in the jet’s trajectory, 90 degrees left, then 360 degrees right as it plunged from a cruising altitude to 15,000 feet before vanishing from radar.
But Ehab Mohieldin Azmi, head of Egypt’s air navigation services, said Egyptian officials saw no sign of the plane swerving, and it had been visible at 37,000 feet.
“Of course, we tried to call it more than once and it did not respond,” he said. “We asked the planes that were nearby to give it a relay and we could not reach it. That’s it.”
Egypt’s public prosecutor has asked Greece to hand over transcripts of calls between the pilot and air traffic control.
He has also asked for the officials to be questioned over whether the pilot sent a distress signal.
And he has asked France for documents, audio and visual records on the plane during its stopover at Charles de Gaulle airport and until it left French airspace.
Greece will start dispatching key information on the crash to Egyptian authorities today, including data from the airliner as it flew through Greek airspace moments before disappearing, a source close to the investigation said yesterday.
“We will start sending the main data from tomorrow, including the radar tracking and the conversation with controllers,” one source who requested anonymity said.
Egyptian forensics officials yesterday collected DNA from relatives of those on board the flight to help identify the body parts retrieved from the Mediterranean, the airline said.
“Body parts arrived at the morgue yesterday and other body parts arrived the day before yesterday,” EgyptAir Holding Company chairman Safwat Musallam told reporters.
“DNA samples have been collected from the victims’ families to help identify body parts,” EgyptAir said in an e-mailed statement.
Experts dismiss reports
Experts and sources close to the investigation said that local media reports that body parts analysis showed evidence of an explosion did not in fact reveal anything about the cause of the disaster.
“When a plane crashes, an explosion takes place at some stage or another, reducing the plane to pieces,” one source said.
This is “either as a result of mechanical failure or a criminal act, or when the plane hits the sea after falling 11 kilometers, as in this case.”
“This does not advance the investigation, unless we find traces of an explosive, which is not the case at this stage,” the source added.
Asked about widespread speculation of an explosion, another source close to the investigation told reporters: “To be honest, I’m not an expert on this issue...the aircraft debris is too small in number for us to say why the plane crashed.”
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