Egyptair has now confirmed the flight was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two infants, and 10 crew.
The pilot had 6,000 flight hours.
Earlier, the airline said 69 people were on board.
Egypt's civil aviation ministry said search and rescue teams were looking for the missing jet.
A ministry source also said technical information about the condition of the plane was being gathered, Reuters news agency reports.
In 1999 an EgyptAir flight crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, killing all 217 people on board.
US investigators found the co-pilot had switched off the autopilot and pointed the Boeing 676 downward. However, Egyptian officials did not accept it was a suicide, saying instead it was a mechanical issue.
- Total fleet of 63 aircraft
- 11 Airbus A320s
Ahmed Abdul, the vice-chairman of EgyptAir holding company, told CNN there were “no recorded snags coming out of Cairo” and nothing reported before the plane left Charles de Gaulle in Paris.
In March, an EgyptAir plane was hijacked on its way to Cairo and forced to divert to Cyprus. The hijacker later surrenderedto police and the passengers were safely evacuated.
The plane left Paris Charles de Gaulle airport at 23.09 local time Wednesday (22:09 BST/07:09 Thursday AEST).
It lost contact at 02:45am Cairo time (01.45 BST/10.45 AEST).
The plane was about three hours and 40 minutes into its journey and has now been missing for more than three hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment