EgyptAir jet crash an accident – investigators California to vote on legalising cannabis

French prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation into the EgyptAir Flight 804 crash.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutors’ office in Paris said yesterday the inquiry had been launched as an accident investigation, not a terrorism case. This distinction has strengthened the belief that the crash was caused by mechanical failure or human error.

French experts are working to repair the water-damaged cockpit sound recorder from the Airbus A320 jet, which crashed into the Mediterranean Sea last month. It took them only a day to fix the data black box recovered from the seabed.

Investigators hope that the information recovered will explain why the jet veered off course during the flight from Paris to Cairo on May 19 and crashed into the sea between Crete and Alexandria, killing all 66 people on board.

Automatic alerts of a fire on board and control problems have suggested it was an accident.

Full details of the flight – including speed, altitude, pressure measurements, temperatures, engine performance and control settings – were recovered intact by the aviation safety agency in Paris and are ready to be examined by Egyptian officials leading the investigation.

The prosecutors’ spokeswoman said French authorities were not favouring theories that the plane was downed deliberately.

Egyptian officials said it was still too early to rule out terrorism as the cause of the crash. California voters will decide whether to legalise recreational marijuana, after Secretary of State Alex Padilla said yesterday that initiative proponents had gathered more than enough signatures to place the question on the November ballot.

A successful vote in California would result in one in every six Americans living in a state with legal marijuana sales, including the entire West Coast.

The initiative is promoted by a well-funded and connected coalition spearheaded by former Facebook president Sean Parker.

It asks voters to allow people 21 and older to buy an ounce (28 grams) of cannabis and cannabisinfused products at licensed retail outlets, and also to grow up to six plants for personal recreational use. Smoking the drug would remain banned in places where tobacco use is prohibited, including restaurants, bars and other enclosed public places.

Sales of both recreational and medical marijuana would initially be subject to a 15 per cent tax.

California cities and counties would retain the right to prohibit marijuana-related businesses and to impose their own fees and taxes.