History: Egyptair Flight 804

EgyptAir Flight 804 (MS804/MSR804) is an international passenger flight operated by EgyptAir. On 19 May 2016 the Airbus A320 aircraft that was operating the flight (Aerial disappearences|disappeared)) from radar screens at 02:45 local time at about 220 km south of the greek island of Karpathos. Authorities from Egypt stated that the plane is presumed as crashed into the sea. Currently a multinational search and rescue operation is underway.

Aircraft

The aircraft is an Airbus A320 registered as SU-GCC having serial number (MSN) 2088. It was built in 2003 performed its maiden flight on 25 July 2003 and was delivered to EgyptAir on 3 November 2003. According to maintenance logs the aircraft was checked a day earlier in Cairo before it left for Paris. Before operating the Cairo - Paris route, the aircraft already operated 4 other flights, from Asmara International Airport, Eritrea to Cairo, from Cairo to Tunis Carthage International Airport and back to Cairo and then it departed to Paris.

Flight

The flight departed from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to Cairo International Airport at 23:09 CEST (21:09 UTC). At the moment of the disappearance it was flying at 37,000 feet (11,000 m) in clear weather. The last known location was at 02:30 EET (00:30 UTC), at this time the aicraft was 3 hours and 25 minutes into the flight and at about 175 miles (282 km) north of the Egyptian coast and about 220 km south of the island of Karpathos, Greece. The scheduled arrival time at Cairo International Airport was 03:05 EET (01:05 UTC).

Two hours after the flight went missing at 04:26 EET (02:26 UTC) an ELT signal was detected by the Egyptian military. This usually an indication that the Cockpit Voice Recorder or the Flight Data Recorder came in contact with water.

Airbus, the manufacturer of the aircraft released a statement on their Facebook page confirming the disappearance of the flight, the statement says: "Airbus regrets to confirm that an A320 operated by Egyptair was lost at around 2:30 am (Egypt local time) today over the Mediterranean sea."

Accident

Search and recovery

Search and rescue operations began almost immediately as the information about the missing aircraft went public. The search effort is carried out by Egypt in cooperation with Greece. The greek authorities deployed a Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft and an early warning aircraft and later also several ships including a frigate. France also is sending ships and aircraft to join the rescue effort.

According to MarineTraffic several commercial ships have altered their courses and are converging to the last known position of the aircraft in order to help with the search operation.

Passengers and crew

The flight operated with 10 crew, 2 pilots, 5 flight attendants and 3 EgyptAir security personnel. The pilot was Mohammed Shokeir who had 6275 hours of flying experience (2101 on Airbus A320) while the first officer had 2766 hours of flying time.

Investigation

Conclusions

Aftermath

Further reading

EgyptAir
Aircraft disasters