EgyptAir Flight MS804 Mysteriously Vanishes Over Mediterranean

On Thursday, an EgyptAir plane carrying 66 people aboard crashed over the Mediterranean Sea.

The missing jet was an Airbus A320, dubbed as one of the safest passenger planes in service. Boeing safety analysis said the Airbus registered just 0.14 fatal accidents per million takeoffs.

Despite having no immediate information about the disappearance of the plane, Egypt's Aviation Minister said in a statement that terror attack was a more likely explanation than a mechanical issue on the plane.

"I don't want to go to assumptions like others, but if you analyze the situation properly, the possibility ... of having a terror attack is higher than having a technical failure," the Egyptian aviation minister Sherif Fathi told reporters of Associated Press.

Here's what we know about the incident so far based on the official press updates of EgyptAir:

1. The plane, which was supposed to land in Cairo at 3:00 a.m. (local time), was carrying 10 crew and 56 passengers on board, including two babies and a child.
2. It carries mostly French (15) and Egyptian (30) nationals. Others are: two Iraqis and one each from Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria, Canada, Great Britain, Belgium, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
3. It has made a series of unexpected turns before it disappeared from radar, the Greek defense minister Panos Kammenos said.
4. It was over water, about 175 miles off the African coast, and had just entered Egyptian airspace when it  went missing, he said.
5. EgyptAir said the Airbus A320 commercial airline jet lost radar contact at 2:45 a.m. local time at 37,000 feet.
6. Flight MS804 - went down less than 200 miles from Egypt's coast.
7. Two hours after it went missing, a distress signal went off in the area where the plane vanished.
8. Conditions were clear and calm when the plane crossed over the Mediterranean Sea.
9. A fleet of search crews from Greece and French surveillance is searching the sea for possible survivors and plane wreckage.
10. Two planes, two helicopters and a frigate had been sent to an area south-southeast of the island of Karpathios.
11. Few hours ago, Greek military officials said they have located two orange items believed to be from the missing flight 230 miles southeast of Crete. However, EgyptAir has backtracked on claims saying they are "non-plane" materials.
12. On Friday, Egyptian state TV quoted the Egyptian military saying wreckage was found about 290km north of the Egyptian city. EgyptAir confirmed the news.

The Egyptian Armed Forces have informed EGYPTAIR that they have found first debris from the missing aircraft operating flight MS804 #MS804

— EGYPTAIR (@EGYPTAIR) May 20, 2016