16 June 2016

EgyptAir crash wreckage found

The BBC has an article about the EgyptAir crash:

Wreckage of the EgyptAir flight that went missing over the Mediterranean last month has been found, Egyptian investigators say. A statement said "several main locations of the wreckage" had been identified. A search vessel had also sent back the first images of the wreckage, the statement added.
There were 66 people on board flight MS804 when it crashed on 19 May 2016 while flying from Paris, France to Cairo, Egypt. The Airbus A320 plane vanished from Greek and Egyptian radar screens, apparently without having sent a distress call.
The Egyptian investigation committee said that investigators on board the John Lethbridge search vessel, contracted by the Egyptian government, would now draw up a distribution map of the wreckage.
Analysis by Richard Westcott, BBC Transport Correspondent:
Investigators will begin with something they call "the four corners". It means that, before touching anything, they will map exactly where every single piece of the aircraft ended up. If debris is spread over a large area, it tells them the plane broke up in mid-air. If it is more intact, it suggests it hit the water, then broke up.
They will also look for what is missing. If, for example, an engine or the tail is two miles away, it clearly broke off earlier in the flight.
The little evidence so far suggests a fire broke out in the front of the aircraft, so they will be keen to film and photograph that area. One experienced investigator who worked on the Lockerbie bombing said bomb damage looks very different to fire damage.
Ultimately, investigators will probably have to retrieve wreckage to know for sure what brought this plane down. And that could take weeks, even months.
Earlier this month, search teams said signals from one of the "black box" flight recorders had been detected. Finding them is crucial to understanding what caused the plane to go down, Airbus said. The plane maker said photos of wreckage did not tell investigators much.
Experts have warned that signals emitted by the recorders are expected to expire by 24 June, but a source close to the search told the AFP news agency that the John Lethbridge is capable of locating them even without those signals. The cause of the crash remains unknown.
A terror attack has not been ruled out, but no extremist group has claimed the downing of the plane. Analysts say human or technical error is also a possibility. Electronic messages sent by the plane revealed that smoke detectors went off in the toilet and the aircraft's electrics, minutes before the plane's signal was lost.
According to Greek investigators, the plane turned ninety degrees left and then three hundred and sixty degrees to the right, dropping from 11,300 meters to 4,600 meters and then 3,000 meters before it was lost from radar. The search area is one of the deepest parts of the Mediterranean, more than 3,000 meters deep in places.
Rico says somebody got a lot of 'splainin' to do if it wasn't a bomb...

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