Search on for clues in EgyptAir crash

CAIRO — Egypt enlisted a submarine Sunday to search the Mediterranean seabed for the black boxes of EgyptAir MS804 three days after it crashed, hoping the recorders would explain the mysterious disaster.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi said it was too early to tell what caused the Airbus A320 to plunge into the sea with 66 people on board, after the plane sent out automated messages.

Some wreckage from the plane that had been en route to Cairo from Paris has been found, but none of the passengers’ bodies, an Egyptian civil aviation ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

France’s aviation safety agency said Flight MS804 had transmitted automated messages indicating smoke in the cabin and the pilot’s flight control unit.

Sisi said a submarine that can operate 3,000 metres below sea level had been enlisted from the oil ministry, and he urged against speculation on why the plane went down.

“All the theories are possible,” he said in a televised address. “There is no particular theory we can affirm right now.”

 Egypt’s aviation minister has said terrorism is more likely than technical failure without offering any proof.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said “all theories are being examined and none is favoured”.

The disaster comes after the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in October that killed all 224 people on board.

The Daesh terror group claimed responsibility for that attack within hours, but there has been no claim linked to the EgyptAir crash.

A rare audio message on Saturday by the ultra-radical group’s spokesman Mohamed Al Adnani made no mention of the plane, although it called for attacks on the US and European countries, especially civilians, during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan which begins in June.

The message may have been recorded before the disaster on Thursday.

A French patrol boat carrying equipment capable of tracing the black boxes was expected in the search area between the Greek island of Karpathos and the Egyptian coast on Monday afternoon.

But experts have warned that the equipment could be useless if the black boxes — which can emit signals up to five weeks — have sunk to a depth of more than 2,000 metres.

Priority passenger remains 

French and Egyptian aviation officials have said it is too soon determine what brought down the plane.

It is “far too soon to interpret and understand the cause of the accident as long as we have not found the wreckage or the flight data recorders”, a spokesman for France’s Bureau of Investigations and Analysis said.