A life jacket among recovered debris of the EgyptAir jet that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea is seen in this handout image released May 21, 2016 by Egypt's military. Egyptian Military/Handout via Reuters
The contents of the black box from the EgyptAir jet that crashed on Thursday will be analyzed in Egypt if it is found intact, air accident investigator Hani Galal told Egyptian private broadcaster CBC on Monday.
The recorder will be sent abroad for analysis if it is found in a damaged state, he said. Egyptian officials were able to track the plane for one minute before it crashed but were unable to communicate with the crew, the head of Egypt's National Navigation Services Company told the same channel.
Egyptian officials did not see the plane swerve, Ehab Mohieeldin added, contradicting comments made by the Greek defense minister.
(Reporting by Omar Fahmy; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; editing by John Stonestreet)
Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal has left the Premier League club, he said in a statement on Monday.
“I am very disappointed to be unable to complete our intended three-year plan,” he announced on the United website.
“I believe that the foundations are firmly in place to enable the club to move forward and achieve even greater success.
Former Chelsea and Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho will be named as Van Gaal’s replacement this week, British media have reported.
Van Gaal led United to victory in the FA Cup final on Saturday after they finished fifth in the Premier League and failed to qualify for next season’s Champions League.
“I am immensely proud to have helped United win the FA Cup for the 12th time in the club’s history,” said Van Gaal.
“I have been privileged during my management career to have won 20 trophies but winning the FA Cup, which is steeped in so much history, will always be one of the most special achievements of my career.
“I hope that winning the FA Cup will give the club a platform to build upon next season to restore the success that this passionate set of fans desire,” he added.
The 64-year-old Dutchman signed a three-year contract at Old Trafford in May 2014, succeeding David Moyes, who took over from Alex Ferguson for the 2013-14 season.
Van Gaal lifted the club from seventh place in the league under Moyes to fourth in his first season but despite further heavy spending in the transfer market the team have stagnated and the fans have become increasingly disgruntled.
United’s inability to produce the free-flowing football that characterized Ferguson’s trophy-laden reign at Old Trafford has been Van Gaal’s biggest failing.
The team’s goals per game ratio, especially at home, last season was lower than all their main rivals.
United briefly topped the table at the end of September, but by mid-December they had dropped out of the top four after humiliating back-to-back defeats by promoted clubs Bournemouth and Norwich City.
Failing to qualify for the knockout stage of this season’s Champions League, after finishing third in their group behind VfL Wolfsburg and PSV Eindhoven, was another damaging blow for Van Gaal.
Losing to arch-rivals Liverpool in the Europa League increased the pressure on the former Ajax Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Netherlands coach.
Amid regular media reports that Portuguese coach Mourinho was poised to replace him, Van Gaal steered United to the FA Cup final with wins over West Ham United and Everton.
They came from behind to beat Crystal Palace 2-1 after extra time in the final at Wembley to win their first major trophy for three years but it was not enough to save Van Gaal.
“It has been an honour to manage such a magnificent club as Manchester United FC, and in doing so, I have fulfilled a long-held ambition,” said Van Gaal in Monday’s statement.
“Thank you to the owners and board of Manchester United for giving me the opportunity to manage this great club.”
A U.S. Secret Service agent shot a man who brandished a gun near the White House on Friday while President Barack Obama was out golfing, and the man was taken to a hospital in critical condition, officials said.
The Secret Service, which protects the president and his family, briefly locked down the White House as a precaution, and Vice President Joe Biden was secured within the White House complex during the lockdown, a White House spokeswoman said.
The shooting took place just off 17th and E streets, near what is known as the South Lawn outside the home and offices of the president.
A man carrying a gun approached a checkpoint shortly after 3 p.m. when uniformed Secret Service officers ordered him to stop and drop the weapon, the Secret Service said in a statement.
"When the subject failed to comply with the verbal commands, he was shot once by a Secret Service agent and taken into custody," the statement said.The man was taken to hospital in critical condition, the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department said.
A man who appeared to be in his mid-20s walked to a gate of the White House holding a silver-colored gun pointed at the ground, said Brett Polivka, a 26-year-old visitor from Texas who was near the south side of the White House.
"A couple officers drew their guns, went right at him and within two or three seconds we heard a gunshot," Polivka said.
The Secret Service, which also guards other top dignitaries, said all those under its protection were safe, but it did not say if Obama's family was home at the time.
"Everyone in the White House is safe and accounted for," a White House official said.
The shooting followed several incidents that raised questions about the Secret Service's performance.
In September 2014, a knife-carrying man jumped a fence and ran into the White House itself in one of the worst security breaches during Obama's tenure.
That episode led to the resignation of the Secret Service's director.
In March 2015, two Secret Service agents capped off a night of drinking by driving into a White House barricade inches away from a suspicious package that investigators were examining.
In 2011, a man hit the White House with automatic rifle fire, though damage to the building was not discovered for several days.
(Reporting by Megan Cassalla, Jeff Mason and Eric Walsh in Washington; additional reporting by Joseph Ax and Gina Cherelus in New York and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Tom Brown and Jonathan Oatis)
However, there has been no official confirmation of the data.
Flight MS804 was en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people on board.
The Aviation Herald said it had received flight data filed through the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) from three independent channels.
It said the system showed that at 02:26 local time on Thursday (00:26 GMT) smoke was detected in the Airbus A320 toilet.
A minute later - at 00:27 GMT - there was an avionics smoke alert.
The last ACARS message was at 00:29 GMT, the air industry website said, and the contact with the plane was lost four minutes later at 02;33 local time.
ACARS is used to routinely download flight data to the airline operating the aircraft.
Image copyrightTHE AVIATION HERALD
Philip Baum, the editor of Aviation Security International Magazine, told the BBC that technical failure could not be ruled out.
"There was smoke reported in the aircraft lavatory, then smoke in the avionics bay, and over a period of three minutes the aircraft's systems shut down, so you know, that's starting to indicate that it probably wasn't a hijack, it probably wasn't a struggle in the cockpit, it's more likely a fire on board.
"Now whether that was a technical fire, a short circuit, or whether it was because a bomb went off on board, we don't know," he added.
Greece earlier said that radar showed the Airbus A320 had made two sharp turns and dropped more than 25,000ft (7,620m) before plunging into the sea.
Debris and body parts were found on Friday by teams searching for the wreckage of the Airbus320, Greek and Egyptian officials said.
Items including seats and luggage have also been retrieved by Egyptian search crews.
The debris was discovered about 290km (180 miles) north of Alexandria, the Egyptian military said.
European Space Agency satellites spotted an oil slick in the area where the flight had vanished - but the organisation said there was no guarantee it was from the plane.
The search is now focused on finding the plane's flight recorders, the Associated Press news agency reports.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has expressed his "utmost sadness and regret" at the crash.
Egypt has said the plane was more likely to have been brought down by a terrorist act than a technical fault.
However, there has been "absolutely no indication" so far as to why the plane came down, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Friday.
Three investigators from the French air accident investigation bureau, along with a technical adviser from Airbus, have joined the Egyptian inquiry.
The BBC has learned the plane that disappeared was forced to make an emergency landing in 2013 after the pilot noticed the engine overheating, but an official report said the defect had been repaired.
In October, an Airbus A321 operated by Russia's Metrojet blew up over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, with all 224 people on board killed.
Sinai Province, a local affiliate of the Islamic State jihadist group, said it had smuggled a bomb on board.
What do we know about what happened?
Who were the victims?
EgyptAir flight MS804
Passengers' nationalities
66
people on board - 56 passengers, seven crew members and three security personnel
30 Egyptians
15 French citizens
2 Iraqis
1 from Britain, Canada, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, Chad and Portugal
Egypt said on Friday its navy had found human remains, wreckage and the personal belongings of passengers floating in the Mediterranean, confirmation that an EgyptAir jet had plunged into the sea with 66 people on board.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi offered condolences for those on board, amounting to Egypt's official acknowledgement of their deaths, although there was still no explanation of why the Airbus had crashed.
"The Egyptian navy was able to retrieve more debris from the plane, some of the passengers' belongings, human remains, and plane seats," the Civil Aviation Ministry said in a statement.
The navy was searching an area about 290 km (180 miles) north of the port city of Alexandria, just south of where the signal from the plane was lost early on Thursday.
There was no sign of the bulk of the wreckage, or of a location signal from the "black box" flight recorders.
EgyptAir Chairman Safwat Moslem told state television that the current radius of the search zone was 40 miles (64 km), giving an area of 5,000 sq miles (13,000 sq km), but that it would be expanded as necessary.
A European satellite spotted a 2 km-long oil slick in the Mediterranean, about 40 km southeast of the aircraft's last known position, the European Space Agency said.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said that it was too early to rule out any cause for the crash. The aviation minister said a terrorist attack was more likely than a technical failure.
Egypt’s military says debris from missing EgyptAir flight MS804 has been found in the Mediterranean.
In an online statement, the Egyptian navy announced that wreckage and passenger belongings had been recovered nearly 300 kilometres north of the city of Alexandria.
The Airbus 320 disappeared on Thursday while en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 passengers and crew on board.
While Egypt continues to lead the search effort, several other countries have provided teams and equipment in an attempt to locate the crashed jet.
Earlier, Greece’s Defence minister said data clearly showed the aircraft had taken sharp turns before plunging into the sea.
Investigations into what may have caused the crash are still on-going, but officials in Egypt have said they believe it is more likely the plane was brought down by a terrorist act than a technical fault.
56 passengers, 10 crew, two babies and one child on board
30 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis and one each from Britain, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria, Canada, Belgium, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
families express anger over lack of information
Sixty six people were on board the Egyptair flight when it disappeared from radar.
Among them, an economics professor and father of two, a student from Chad on his way to visit family, two babies and one child.
These are just some of the portraits emerging from the relatives who are waiting anxiously for answers.
In Paris, many family members rushed to the airport for news, with some catching flights to Egypt in the hopes of finding out more.
“Some families, some family members (of the victims) have left, mostly families of Egyptians who have family ties in Egypt, with the idea that maybe they would be able to find out more information. Today a great difficulty in this tragedy is that they have absolutely no information, and I think it’s urgent to inform these families directly,” expplained Stephane Gicquel, Secretary General of the National Accident Victims’ Federation in France.
From Paris to Cairo airport, families encountered the same agonising wait. Many were taken to a crisis centre where they could expect updates. But some expressed anger over the authorities’ response to the crisis.
“Everything I’ve heard was on TV but some information contradicts other information. Now I will rest a little bit and I will wait. I pray for all the victims.”
“We want the whole truth, we need to know what happened to our sons,” exclaimed one man. “Airport authorities have a responsibility to tell us the truth and what really happened to this airplane. Did it fall and crash into the sea or was it hijacked or what happened,” he asked.
The passengers came from Egypt, France, Britain, Belgium, Portugal, Algeria, Sudan, Chad, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, all with families fearing the worst.
Briton Richard Osman is feared dead after the plane went missing. British media report him as a 40-year-old geologist and father of two.
Most of the people on board Flight MS804 were from Egypt and France. A Briton was also among the passengers.
So far, no wreckage or debris from the aircraft has been found.
Initial reports late on Thursday, based on Egyptian officials' comments that wreckage had been found, later proved unfounded.
Greece's lead air accident investigator Athanasios Binis said items including lifejackets found near Karpathos were not from the Airbus A320.
"An assessment of the finds showed that they do not belong to an aircraft," he said.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has ordered the country's civil aviation ministry, army-run search-and-rescue centre, navy and air force to take all necessary measures to locate the wreckage.
The French air accident investigation bureau has despatched three investigators, along with a technical adviser from Airbus, to join the Egyptian inquiry.
In France, the focus is on whether a possible breach of security happened at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport.
Security was already tight, and under review, after last November's attacks by jihadist militants in the French capital.
Since then, some airport staff have had security clearance revoked over fears of links to Islamic extremists.
Eric Moucay, a lawyer for some of those employees, told the BBC that there had been attempts by Islamists to recruit airport staff.
"That is clear. There are people who are being radicalised in some of the trade unions etc. The authorities have their work cut out with this problem," he said.
No response
Flight MS804 left Paris at 23:09 local time on Wednesday (21:09 GMT) and was scheduled to arrive in the Egyptian capital soon after 03:15 local time (01:15 GMT) on Thursday.
On the plane were 56 passengers, seven crew members and three security personnel.
Greek aviation officials say air traffic controllers spoke to the pilot when he entered Greek airspace and everything appeared normal.
They tried to contact him again at 02:27 Cairo time, as the plane was set to enter Egyptian airspace, but "despite repeated calls, the aircraft did not respond". Two minutes later it vanished from radar.
Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos told reporters: "The picture we have at the moment on the accident as it emerges from the Greek air force operations centre is that the aircraft was approximately 10-15 miles inside the Egyptian FIR [flight information region] and at an altitude of 37,000 feet.
"It turned 90 degrees left and then a 360-degree turn toward the right, dropping from 37,000 to 15,000 feet and then it was lost at about 10,000 feet."
Egyptian Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi said: "Let's not try to jump to the side that is trying to identify this as a technical failure - on the contrary.
"If you analyse the situation properly, the possibility of having a different action, or having a terror attack, is higher than the possibility of having a technical [fault]."
In October an Airbus A321 operated by Russia's Metrojet blew up over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, with the deaths of all 224 people on board. Sinai Province, a local affiliate of the Islamic State jihadist group, said it had smuggled a bomb on board.
French President Francois Hollande said: "We will draw conclusions when we have the truth about what happened.
"Whether it was an accident, or whether it was - and it's something that is on our minds - terrorism."
France, Greece and Turkey join Egypt’s navy scanning the sea, while US deploys surveillance aircraft
A huge hunt is under way in the Mediterranean for debris from the EgyptAir jet that swerved abruptly and disappeared from radar while carrying 66 people from Paris to Cairo.
EgyptAir initially claimed it had found part of the wreckage and life jackets belonging to MS804 near the island of Karpathos, east of Crete, but the airline’s vice-president, Ahmed Adel, later said: “We stand corrected”.
He added that the recovered debris “is not our aircraft”.
Egypt was leading international efforts to find wreckage of the plane, backed byFrance, Greece and Turkey. The US navy dispatched a P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft from a base in Sicily.
Egypt’s aviation minister, Sherif Fathi, said he did not want to prematurely draw conclusions, but added: “The possibility of having a different action or a terror attack is higher than the possibility of having a technical failure.”
France said no theory could yet be ruled out. “The information we have gathered confirms, alas, that this plane has crashed, and it has disappeared,” President François Hollande said. “We have a duty to know everything about the cause and what has happened.”
The aircraft was carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew, including three security personnel. The airline said two babies and one child were on board.
Among the passengers were 30 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis, and one person each from the UK, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria and Canada.
Julie Bishop, Australia’s foreign minister, said on Friday that the UK national was also an Australian citizen. “We are working closely with UK authorities, which are taking the lead in the provision of consular assistance to the man’s family,” she said.
The plane, manufactured in 2003, made “sudden swerves” before dropping off radar, the Greek defence minister, Panos Kammeno, said.It made a 90-degree turn left, and then dropped from 11,000 metres to (37,000ft) to 2,500 metres (15,000ft) before swerving 360 degrees right, he added.
Its captain, Mohamed Said Shoukair, had 6,275 flying hours’ experience. He did not send a distress signal.
No group has claimed responsibility for downing the aircraft.
As well as search efforts, the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, ordered a committee formed by the civil aviation ministry to immediately start investigating the causes of the plane’s disappearance.
Security at the various airports that the missing plane had visited in the preceding 24 hours, including Paris’s Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, is likely to come under close scrutiny. As well as making repeated stops at Cairo International airport, the plane had also visited Asmara in Eritrea and Tunis in Tunisia.
David Gleave, an air accident investigator and aviation expert at Loughborough University, said that planting a bomb earlier in the itinerary was no more likely than in Paris: “EgyptAir had three security guards and there are thorough inspection procedures. Leaving a bomb on board during five sectors [separate journeys] is possible but leaves a lot of issues about it exploding at the right point.
“Barometric timing [triggering through changing air pressure] doesn’t seem to be possible, and the longer you leave a bomb in a plane the more likely it is to be discovered,” he said.
Under the state of emergency imposed in France since the November terror attacks, the French capital’s major airport has seen security measures ramped up.
Los Angeles International airport said it was enhancing “counter-terrorism security measures” in the wake of the plane’s disappearance.
The Airbus A320 went down about 130 miles from Karpathos, Greek aviation sources indicated. C-130 aircraft and at least eight ships spent Thursday hunting for wreckage. The search resumed on Friday.
The plane took off from Charles de Gaulle airport at 11.09pm local time on Wednesday, bound for Cairo. Contact was lost at about 2.30am Egyptian local time.
Greek controllers had tried to make contact with the plane 10 miles before it left their airspace. They received no response.
Greek authorities were investigating an account from the captain of a merchant ship who reported seeing a “flame in the sky” about 130 nautical miles south of Karpathos. The plane was about 10 miles inside Egyptian airspace when it vanished.
Officials from multiple US agencies told Reuters that satellite imagery so far had not produced any signs of an explosion. The anonymous sources said the conclusion was the result of a preliminary examination of imagery. They said the US had not ruled out any possible causes for the crash, including mechanical failure, terrorism or a deliberate act by the pilot or crew.
Britain warned Egyptian officials about lax security at the airport back in 2014. Egypt initially denied any terrorist link. The Kremlin later said an explosive device was responsible and a local branch of the extremist group Islamic State claimed responsibility within hours.
In recent years, Egypt has faced a growing threat from Isis-affiliated groups, including Wilayat Sinai, based in the Sinai peninsula. It has claimed several bombings and shootings in the Nile valley against a backdrop of state repression.
An EgyptAir plane was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus in March. A man who admitted to the hijacking and is described by Cypriot authorities as “psychologically unstable” is in custody in Cyprus.
Retrieving the plane’s black box is likely to be a long and fraught operation. The head of Greece’s air traffic control board, Serafeim Petrou, told the Guardian it was a “fact the plane had crashed”, adding: “Most probably, and very unfortunately, it is at the bottom of the sea.”
Petrou said tracing the cause and retrieving wreckage would therefore take time. “Nothing can be excluded. An explosion could be a possibility but, then, so could damage to the fuselage,” he said.
The airline said in a statement: “EgyptAir sincerely conveys its deepest sorrow to the families and friends of the passengers on board flight MS804. Family members of passengers and crew have been already informed and we extend our deepest sympathies to those affected.”
Relatives of some of the passengers gathered at Cairo International airport.
“There’s no information inside. They’re not telling us anything for sure,” said one young woman, who did not disclose her name. She said she had come to the arrival hall in the hope of hearing news of her friend Samar, one of the 30 Egyptian passengers on board the missing flight.
The UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, confirmed that a British passport holder was on board. The Briton was later named as Richard Osman, a 40-year-old geologist who had recently become a father for the second time.
Those on board also included a Kuwaiti economics professor, Abdulmohsen al-Muteiri, Kuwait’s foreign ministry confirmed. A father of two, he was heading to Cairo for a three-day conference. Another was a young military student from Chad who was flying home to visit his mother.
