Head of Greece air safety authority says ‘analysis of the debris indicates that it does not come from a plane’

Family members of passengers who were flying aboard an EgyptAir plane that vanished from radar en route from Paris to Cairo overnight get ready to be transported by bus to a gathering point at Cairo airport on May 19, 2016. (AFP PHOTO/KHALED DESOUKI)
Family members of passengers who were flying aboard an EgyptAir plane that vanished from radar en route from Paris to Cairo overnight get ready to be transported by bus to a gathering point at Cairo airport on May 19, 2016. (AFP PHOTO/KHALED DESOUKI)

 

The head of the Greek air safety authority on Thursday told AFP that wreckage found in the Mediterranean close to where an EgyptAir passenger jet is thought to have crashed “does not come from a plane.”

“Up to now the analysis of the debris indicates that it does not come from a plane, my Egyptian counterpart also confirmed to me that it was not yet proven that the debris came from the EgyptAir flight when we were last in contact around 1745 GMT,” Athanasios Binis told AFP.

His words contradicted an earlier claim by EgyptAir on Twitter, which said Egyptian officials had confirmed that debris found near the Greek island of Karpathos came from the ill-fated flight, along with floating “life jackets and plastic material.”

A relative of a passenger who was flying aboard an EgyptAir plane that vanished from radar en route from Paris to Cairo overnight cries as family members are transported by bus to a gathering point at Cairo airport on May 19, 2016. (AFP PHOTO / KHALED DESOUKI)
A relative of a passenger who was flying aboard an EgyptAir plane that vanished from radar en route from Paris to Cairo overnight cries as family members are transported by bus to a gathering point at Cairo airport on May 19, 2016. (AFP PHOTO / KHALED DESOUKI)

“What was found was a piece of wood, and some materials that do not come from a plane,” said Binis of the Greek Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board.

“Based on the available geographical information, we are talking about the same debris,” he added, although he stressed that new information could come in at any time.

The EgyptAir plane carrying 66 people disappeared from radar screens early Thursday, taking two sharp turns before plunging 22,000 feet into the Mediterranean Sea, Greek officials said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday sent his condolences to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in the wake of the crash.

“I offer my condolences to Egyptian President el-Sisi and the people of Egypt following the tragic plane crash in the Mediterranean Sea,” he wrote on his official Twitter page.

Egypt’s Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy said he could not rule out either terrorism or a technical problem.

“I don’t deny the hypothesis of a terrorist attack or something technical. It is too early,” he said. “The possibility of having a different action on-board, of having a terror attack, it is higher than the possibility of having a technical [failure].”

As reported by The Times of Israel