Sudden fire to blame for crash

A sudden fire in the cockpit area caused the mid-air break-up of the EgyptAir Airbus that crashed in the Mediterranean in May killing 66 people but it remains unclear what started it, according to reports from investigators.

The two pilots had been chatting and listening to music as they neared Cairo on a night flight from Paris when Captain Muhammad Shoukair said that there was a fire on board the Airbus A320 and asked Muhammad Mamdouh Assem, the co-pilot, to tackle it with an extinguisher, according to the flight deck sound recorder.

Although the initial response from the crew betrayed no panic, the fire quickly overwhelmed them, sending the aircraft into the sea from cruising altitude without any further conversation between the pilots or an emergency call.

The black box, along with the data recorder, was recovered from the sea floor last month. Egyptian officials had suspected terrorism but nothing so far has favoured that theory over a possible accidental cause.

The account from the Egyptian investigation, leaked to The New York Times, strengthened the assumption of fire on EgyptAir Flight 804 that had been indicated by the data recorder and an automatic satellite data transmission showing smoke alerts in the last minutes of the flight. Investigators also retrieved blackened pieces of metal from the front of the aircraft indicate a high-temperature fire.

Debris from the scene and the wide area of wreckage showed that the aircraft had come apart before hitting the water, according to the report. No bodies had been found intact.

Airbus airliners have a sound record but some experts pointed to a possible precedent with a fire on an Australian Jetstar Airways Airbus A330 as it flew from Osaka in Japan to Queensland in June 2009. The crew saw flames at the base of the right-hand windshield and extinguished them. The fire was found to have been caused by an electrical connection to the windshield heating system, and the faulty system was then replaced in all A330s and A320s.

The Egyptian investigation agency is expected to issue a preliminary report within a week.