EgyptAir MS804 : What we know so far about Egypt's Newest Disaster !!! "Updated"

Once again, I woke up to the news of another airliner disaster related to Egypt !!
I think you probably have heard or knew that there is a missing Egyptian Airliner and the world is searching for it in the Mediterranean.
This is what we have known officially so far :
An EgyptAir Plane carrying 66 passengers and crew heading from Paris to Cairo disappeared from radars off the Greek territorial waters before its debris is found near the Greeks isles.
According to official statements above them EgyptAir Statement posted on its official twitter account at 4:52 AM CLT in Arabic before posting its English version 5 minutes later :

An informed source at EGYPTAIR stated that Flight no MS804,which departed Paris at 23:09 (CEST),heading to Cairo has disappeared from radar.

— EGYPTAIR (@EGYPTAIR) May 19, 2016

Later EgyptAir released more information about the disappeared flight.
EgyptAir A320 aircraft "Flight number MS804" lost contact with radar above the Mediterranean Sea about 280 KM from the Egyptian seacoast at 02:30 am CLT as the flight was expected to arrive Cairo International airport 03:15 PM from Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport.
The A320 manufactured in 2003 departed Paris at 23:09 "CEST". It was at a height of 37.000 ft when it disappeared after entering the Egyptian airspace with 10 miles.
The aircraft pilot has 6275 of flying hours including 2101 flying hours on Airbus 320 while the co-pilot has 2766 flying hours.

Where the EgyptAir MS804 went missing from FlightRadar.com

Here is its flight history as documented by FlightRadar24.com
Here is also the last 30 minutes as recorded by FlightRadar24.com
The MS804 had on its board 56 passengers included 30 Egyptians, 15 French , two Iraqis, One Briton, One Canadian, One Sudanese, One Chadian , One Portuguese, One Saudi , One Kuwaiti and One Algerian
The passengers included 1 child and 3 infants .
There were 10 cabin crew members on the board of the airliner including 3 security personnel.
Pray for them.
Here are their names as released by Egypt's ministry of aviation earlier Thursday.

The released statement as circulated in Egyptian media. 

Hours later, we knew from Greek authorities as well from Flight Radar that the MS804 last appeared off the Greek Island "Karpathos".
The last known contact with the flight pilot was with the Greek air controllers and he did not report any problems.
Egyptian and Greek navy forces as well French forces are doing search and rescue operations near Karpathos.
Marine Traffic released a video showing the navy forces heading from Egypt and Greece heading towards to where the MS804 was allegedly spotted in the Mediterranean sea.

The sea rescue operations

The US forces, Italy and Cyprs joined the rescue operations by the request of the Greek authorities.
Hours after the start of the search , the Hellenic army of Greece declared that it found parts of the airplane debris off the island of Crete after it was spotted by an Egyptian C-130 plane.
Nevertheless, EgyptAir reported that it could not substantiate that the debris was found near Crete after contacting the authorities as TV channels claimed !!!

EGYPTAIR has contacted the concerned authorities which did not confirm this information. /2

— EGYPTAIR (@EGYPTAIR) May 19, 2016

This is not the first confusion that happens on Thursday throughout the day. Earlier EgyptAir announced that Egyptian armed forces' rescue and search department received a distress call from the airplane at 4:26 AM. 

الساعة 04:26 محلي بتوقيت القاهرة فجر اليوم وجاري البحث.

— EGYPTAIR (@EGYPTAIR) May 19, 2016

The Egyptian prime also told the reporters earlier about that distress signal
Anyhow , it was strange because EgyptAir mentioned that the airliner's last contact was at 2:30 AM CLT and not 4:26 AM.
The Egyptian armed forces denied that it received any distress signal. 

Anyhow at 7:09 PM , EgyptAir announced that it received an official letter from Egypt's foreign ministry saying that part of the wreckage was found near Karpathos.

from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declaring the finding of wreckage of the missing aircraft No. MS 804

— EGYPTAIR (@EGYPTAIR) May 19, 2016

Then after several hours , now Greek officials say that they had not found the wreckage !!

Officials speak : 

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi held an urgent meeting of the National Security council earlier Thursday to discuss the matter.

Sisi's urgent meeting in Cairo "Egyptian Presidency" 

The French president also held a meeting for the French National security council but according to my knowledge that meeting in Paris was already planned to discuss the security situation in France and it seemed that it came at the right moment.

Egypt and France started the investigation in the "disappearance" of the airliner.

Egypt's PM Sharif Ismail said in media statements that it was too early to know the cause behind the disappearance of MS804 and whether it was due technical reasons or terrorist attack. The Same thing is confirmed by Egyptian officials in Cairo.

On the other hand, French President Hollande confirmed that the Airliner crashed according to the Egyptian authorities while presenting his condolences to the families of the victims .
Greek minister of defense told the media that the Egyptian airliner made abrupt turns, suddenly lost altitude just before vanishing from radar.
Greece released the final moments of the airliner.

In chaotic Press conference held at Cairo International airport , Egypt's minister of civil aviation stated that the possibility of terrorist act in the crash of the airliner was higher than the possibility of technical malfunction according to what he read and from his expertise but that "remains as assumption" according to what he said to Ahram Online.

At the same time , head of Russia's FSB stated that a terrorist act was "likely" behind the crash.
No terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for downing the airliner and people, unfortunately, circulating the statement of Daesh about the Russian airliner as it is a new statement.

Here is the Airbus' Official statement about the incident.


Whether it is a terrorist act or technical malfunction , it is a disaster to Egypt.

Sadly enough , I went on a short gateway this week and this is not the sort of news I want to return back to.
I had enough of bad news related to Tiran and Sanafir protesters this week.
Just pray for the families of those missing people.
The airplane is indeed missing till its debris is found