Mystery of ‘distress call’ by Med jet crash pilot
THE pilot of the doomed EgyptAir jet did make a distress call just before it dived into the Mediterranean, it was claimed last night.
Mohamed Said Ali Ali Shoukair told air traffic control he was making an emergency descent to clear smoke engulfing Flight MS804, according to French TV station M6.
The claim backs up reports from the airline soon after Thursday’s disaster which killed 66 passengers and crew on the Airbus, including Briton Richard Osman, 40.
That initial allegation was denied by the Egyptian military and later withdrawn by EgyptAir, which last night insisted: ‘Claims made by the French TV station are not true. The pilot did not contact Egypt air control before the incident.’
The broadcaster claimed Captain Shoukair, 37, spoke with Cairo controllers for ‘several minutes’ after his A320 hit problems en route from Paris to the Egyptian capital.
Aeronautics expert Jean Belotti said the emergency dive tactic was possible: ‘When a fire breaks out on board, a procedure can ventilate the cabin and isolate the incident.’
Earlier reports had said Captain Shoukair’s final contact was saying ‘Thank you’ to Greek air controllers as he flew through their air space.
Egypt president Abdel-Fattah el- Sisi broke his silence on the crash yesterday, saying a submarine would be used to find the jet’s ‘black box’ data and voice recorders, which emit a locator signal for only a month before batteries run out. He said ‘all scenarios are possible’.
He spoke as the first memorial services for the 56 passengers and 10 crew were held and pictures of recovered debris were released.
Details of the jet’s final three minutes were revealed yesterday via a flurry of automatic electronic mes- sages showing a rapid loss of control. Smoke was recorded in a toilet behind the cockpit and in a bay of computers controlling the plane. A fixed cockpit window then opened and the flight control unit cut out.
Some experts said the rapid series of alarms hinted at a bomb but others suggested faulty wiring could be to blame. Philip Butterworth-Hayes, a British aviation specialist, said: ‘It is physically possible there was a technical issue. If it began in the toilet it could be a suicide bomber.’