Egypt claims search teams found debris from plane

CAIRO— Egypt on Wednesday said that it spotted and obtained images from the wreckage of the EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean last month, killing all 66 people on board, according to a statement by the country’s investigation committee.

The committee said that the vessel John Lethbridge, which was contracted by the Egyptian government to join the search for the plane debris and flight data recorders, “had identified several main locations of the wreckage.” It added that it obtained images of the wreckage located between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast.

The next step, the committee said, will be drawing a map showing the wreckage location.

The 75-metre-long survey vessel is equipped with sonar and other equipment capable of detecting wreckage at depths up to 1,830 metres.

The EgyptAir Airbus A320 en route to Cairo from Paris had been cruising normally in clear skies on an overnight flight on May 19. The radar showed that the doomed aircraft turned 90 degrees left, then a full 360 degrees to the right, plummeting from 11,582 metres to 4,572 metres before disappearing at about 3,048 metres.

Leaked flight data indicated a sen- sor detected smoke in a lavatory and a fault in two of the plane’s cockpit windows in the final moments of the flight.

The cause of the crash still has not been determined. Ships and planes from Egypt, Greece, France, the United States and other nations have been searching the Mediterranean Sea north of the Egyptian port of Alexandria for the jet’s voice and flight data recorders, as well as more bodies and parts of the aircraft.

Since the crash began, only small pieces of wreckage and human remains have been recovered in a search that has been narrowed down to five-kilometre area of the Mediterranean.