GERMANY
POLAND
UKRAINE
Paris
HUNGARY
FRANCE
ROMANIA
Black Sea
SERB.
BULGARIA
Path of
EgyptAir Flight 804
Istanbul
SPAIN
TURKEY
GREECE
ITALY
Last known
location of plane
Athens
SYRIA
Mediterranean Sea
ISR.
TUNISIA
Tripoli
ALGERIA
Cairo
Intended
destination
LIBYA
EGYPT
11:09 p.m.
Departed from Paris Charles De Gaulle airport.
2:26 a.m.
Pilot speaks with Greece traffic controllers.
2:30 a.m.
Last radar contact with EgyptAir.
2:37 a.m.
Enters Egyptian airspace.
The flight departed Paris on Wednesday night. At 2:26 a.m., shortly before it was expected to land in Cairo, the pilot spoke to air traffic controllers in Greece and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, officials said. Three or four minutes later, the plane made its last radar contact.
After entering Egyptian airspace at 2:37 a.m., the plane made a 90-degree turn to the left and then a 360-degree turn to the right, plunging to 15,000 feet from 37,000 feet and disappearing from radar, the Greek defense minister, Panos Kammenos, said at a news conference Thursday afternoon.
Plane Turned Erratically and Plunged
to 15,000 Feet Before Disappearing
ft
40,000
20,000
0
11 p.m.
11:30
Thu 19
12:30
01 a.m.
01:30
02 a.m.
02:45
EgyptAir said it lost contact with Flight 804 at 2:30 a.m.
The jet turned abruptly and dropped to 15,000 feet, a Greek official said
—
—
The cause is not yet known, but the Egyptian minister for civil aviation, Sherif Fathy, said on Thursday that the likelihood the crash was a result of terrorism was “higher” than it was for a technical failure of some kind.
Aviation safety experts said that such sudden movements were highly unusual at any phase of flight and suggested some kind of in-flight emergency.
The authorities mounted an intense search-and-rescue operation focused around the Greek island of Karpathos, between Crete and Rhodes.
Earlier in the day, the Greek authorities said that searchers found pieces of the wreckage of the plane in Egyptian territorial waters. It was later confirmed that the debris found in the water was not from the plane.
Aegean
Sea
ITALY
GREECE
TURKEY
Athens
Path of
EgyptAir Flight 804
CRETE
Last known location of plane at 2:30 a.m.
SYRIA
CYPRUS
Ships near search
area at 3:14 p.m.
Benghazi
IRAQ
Mediterranean
Sea
SAUDI
ARABIA
EGYPT
JORDAN
LIBYA
Cairo
Intended destination
Where the Plane Flew in the Day Before the Crash
As investigators scramble to piece together clues to what happened to EgyptAir Flight 804, analysts said that some attention would probably be focused on where the plane flew in the 24 hours before the crash, with stops in countries where aviation security standards have previously raised concerns.
EUROPE
Paris
Black Sea
MIDDLE
EAST
Mediterranean
Sea
Cairo
NORTH AFRICA
Asmara
1 Cairo–Asmara–Cairo
On Tuesday night, the plane flew to Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. At 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, the plane returned to Cairo and stayed for two hours.
EUROPE
Paris
MIDDLE
EAST
Tunis
Cairo
NORTH AFRICA
2 Cairo–Tunis–Cairo
At 8:21 a.m., the plane left for Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. After about an hour, it returned to Cairo, arriving at 3:17 p.m.
EUROPE
Paris
Last known
location
of plane
MIDDLE
EAST
Cairo
NORTH AFRICA
3 Cairo–Paris–Cairo
The Cairo stopover was less than two hours. The plane left for Paris, landing at 9:55 p.m. It left for Cairo shortly after 11 p.m. Wednesday before it crashed.
An advisory published by the United States State Department in May 2015 warned that security at Asmara International Airport “can be unpredictable,” and noted a “lack of efficiency and consistency” in the screening of travelers there.
In the wake of the October bombing of a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, European officials expressed concerns about gaps in airport security at airports in North Africa, including Tunisia, as well as at some airports in Egypt.
The plane, an Airbus A320, was delivered to EgyptAir in November 2003 and had accumulated 48,000 hours of flying time. The Airbus A320 can typically accommodate up to 220 passengers and is typically built to last 30 or 40 years.
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