CAIRO (Sputnik) – According to Fathy, the plane had not been damaged:
“This is not true, all of the planes are included in programs for technical service,” Fathy said at a press conference in Cairo.
EgyptAir Flight MS804 departed from the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris at 23:09 GMT. The aircraft was heading for Cairo International Airport. According to the airline, there were a total of 66 people on board the plane, including 56 passengers.
Information on the reasons for the disappearance of the EgyptAir passenger jet over the Mediterranean Sea earlier on Thursday is not expected for several days, Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister added.
“Don’t expect information on the reasons for the next few days, pay attention to similar cases and how long they were investigated,” Fathy said at a press conference in Cairo.
Earlier in the day, the French President confirmed that EgyptAir flight MS804 had crashed en route from Paris to Cairo, and added that no hypotheses to why the disaster took place could be excluded.
"It crashed. There were 66 people on board including 15 French nationals," the Elysee Palace said on Twitter, quoting Hollande. "No hypothesis is excluded."
The plane or any of its wreckage has not been found yet.
