PARIS — (CNN) EgyptAir Flight 804 vanished off radar on its way from Paris to Cairo with 66 people aboard, the airline said Thursday.
The plane was flying at 37,000 feet when it lost contact with radar above the Mediterranean Sea, the airline tweeted.
Somber family members gathered at the Cairo International Airport, seeking word on their loved ones. Buses ferried them to a special hall, where translators and psychiatric support awaited.
The Egyptian navy is conducting search and rescue operations with help from Greece.
What we know so far:
Passengers on board the Airbus A320 included three children — two of them infants, said Capt. Ahmed Adel, a vice chairman at EgyptAir.
The flight left Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport at 11:09 p.m. Wednesday local time and was supposed to land in Cairo at 3:15 a.m. Thursday. Both the departure and arrival cities are in the same time zone.
The location of last contact was 173 miles (280 kilometers) from the Egyptian coast, the airline tweeted.
There was no special cargo on the flight and no notification of any dangerous goods aboard, Adel said.
The plane has been part of EgyptAir’s service on November 3, 2003, he added.
The plane’s captain had 6,000 flying hours, Adel said.
Routine maintenance checks on the plane were done Wednesday in Cairo, before it left for Paris, an airline official said.
A distress signal was detected in the general vicinity where the flight disappeared, Adel said. The signal was detected at 4:26 a.m. — about 2 hours after the jet vanished, he said.
Adel said the distress signal could have come from another vessel in the Mediterranean. The Egyptian armed forces stressed that they had not received a distress call.
There’s no confirmed information on the status of the missing plane, Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said.
Nationalities of crew and passengers
Those on board came from various nations including France, Egypt, Britain, Belgium, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria and Canada.
Analysts weigh in
CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest said the plane vanished while cruising — the safest part of the journey.
“Planes just do not fall out of the sky for no reason, particularly at 37,000 feet,” he said.
Experts said while it’s too early to determine what happened, the first priority is to find survivors.
“Find the plane, find the people, see if there are folks that could be rescued,” said David Soucie, a CNN aviation safety analyst.
“Safety people are looking at safety issues, maintenance people looking at maintenance issues, security people looking at security issues.”
Weather conditions
Conditions were clear and calm when the plane crossed over the Mediterranean Sea, according to CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.
“The area in question in the eastern Mediterranean is currently under clear skies, but computer models suggest a storm system may impact the region as early as Friday afternoon,” he said.
“Once the plane reached the Adriatic Sea, several hours into its journey, clouds were beginning to clear and it remained that way for at least another 1-2 hours before the plane’s final known location.”
If there are any survivors, there’s still a window to save them.
“The water temperatures in the eastern Mediterranean near Egypt are in the low 20s Celsius [mid to low 70s Fahrenheit],” Javaheri said.
“Survival times in such waters range from 2-7 hours for the elderly or individuals in poor health, while they range anywhere from 2 to 40 hours for healthier individuals.”
Egypt’s aviation incidents
Egypt is no stranger to aviation disasters.
In March, an “unstable” man diverted an EgyptAir flight from Alexandria to Cyprus. The suspected hijacker later released all hostages and surrendered.
Last year, a Russian plane exploded midair over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people aboard. Egyptian officials initially downplayed a claim by Islamic militants that they brought down the jet, saying technical failure is the most likely reason for the crash.
And in 1999, an EgyptAir passenger jet made a rapid descent, plunging almost 14,000 feet in 36 seconds.
The Boeing 767, en route to Cairo from New York City, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the Massachusetts coast in October of that year.
Though its debris was later found, speculation remains on the cause of the crash that killed all 217 people on board.
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