EgyptAir Flight MS804 has disappeared with 59 56 passengers and 10 crew onboard. It went missing soon after it entered Egyptian airspace, over the eastern Mediterranean.
janrinok adds:
The Guardian has a page with updated details.
martyb summarizes:
Flight MS804, an Airbus A320, was on its fifth flight of the day and traveling at 37,000 feet. It left Paris Charles de Gaulle at 11:09pm local time (21:09 UTC/22:09 BST/07:09 AEST) en route to Cairo and disappeared from radar with 66 people on board at 2:30am (00:30 GMT/01:30 BST/10:30 AEST) approximately 280km (175 miles) north of Egypt's coast — about 45 minutes before it was scheduled to land.
Of the 66 people on board, there were 56 passengers and 10 crew (two cockpit, five cabin, three security).
At 4:26am local time (two hours after the last radar contact) a signal was received from the "plane's emergency devices — possibly an emergency locator transmitter or beacon."
"EgyptAir says the captain has 6,275 flying hours, including 2,101 on the A320; the copilot has 2,766. The plane was manufactured in 2003."
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by devlux on Thursday May 19 2016, @05:00AM
How is this breaking news? Didn't this happen Halloween 2015 and we found out that Daesh claimed responsibility?
(Score: 2) by devlux on Thursday May 19 2016, @05:29AM
It wasn't meant as a troll. Sorry it really did sound like a repeat / dupe.
Further searching brought it out but it took digging. My condolences to the victims and their families.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday May 19 2016, @05:44AM
Good luck recovering from tropical fever (you could always post from a phone, since you'll be bored in the hospital).
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @05:52AM
Further research? You mean clicking ANY of links in the summary?
Jesus...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @05:54AM
Just shut the fuck up. Plane is missing, and we don't know what happened yet.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 19 2016, @05:57AM
From Guardian's feed:
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Thursday May 19 2016, @06:56AM
The origin of this flight was Paris, not Egypt, and if it was a bomb wouldn't it have been over a populated area to further terrorize the indigenous population of Europe?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday May 19 2016, @07:11AM
While the terrorists might prefer the bomb to explode over a populated area, the 2 most popular types of detonator used in such devices (timer and barometric) are dependant on external influences. Time delays, starts of climbs and descents, re-routing by air traffic etc can all change the actual point of detonation.
However, at this time, there is NO evidence that terrorism is involved. It might be considered likely, and it may eventually prove to be the case, but for now all we know is that the aircraft is missing, presumed lost, over the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Egypt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @10:58AM
What if terrorists want to hurt Egypt, instead?
There have already been attacks on tourists.
There has been a vicious attack on Giulio Regeni, a student who was tortured by the police for a week and left to be found. It might either have been the current government wanting to send a message, as Giulio was researching unions, or the secret service that, as usual, has its own agenda. The Regeni case has been spectacularly mishandled by the Egyptian authorities, so I suspect the second.
The message in any case is, tourists BTFO. An impoverished place makes daesh money more powerful.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Thursday May 19 2016, @07:18PM
yeah, terrorist groups always claim responsibility for the horrors they are responsible for causing... and sometimes when they aren't. it's kinda their thing.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @07:52AM
It sounds like they were beating the hell out of that plane with takeoffs and landings. Metal fatigue would be unsurprising.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Thursday May 19 2016, @08:07AM
... especially the way the economy has been amid all the cutbacks.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Informative) by pkrasimirov on Thursday May 19 2016, @10:47AM
Full plane history: https://www.flightradar24.com/reg/su-gcc [flightradar24.com]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 19 2016, @04:40PM
Those planes are designed for short-haul flights. Some routes literally require a takeoff every hour, to hour-and-a-half, including passengers swaps and servicing. That's how the low-cost airlines operate.
Metal fatigue is possible, but that would be a manufacturing defect in a plane that young. Most failures also give pilots time to radio a mayday.
Bad maintenance, mistake, or externalities (not the quietest corner of the world) are a lot more likely.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @08:32AM
If it broke up in-flight at 37,000 feet, shouldn't there have been multiple contacts at a lower altitude, even assuming a radar ping rate of once per second?
If not, then were they REALLY using radar to track this plane(it does seem far out for radar), or were they just relying on transponder pings and it managed to crash between regular signalling intervals?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @09:54AM
While Greek land-based air defense radar covers a lot of the eastern Med, chances are en-route civilian ATC was relying on secondary tracking (transponders). That far out from the coast, only the AN/SPY-1 of a nearby naval Aegis system would have the resolution to profile the breakup/descent with any accuracy. I don't know if there were any Ticos or Burkes in the area (there's usually one or two from the 6th Fleet off Israel/Lebanon or cruising nearby), but this information isn't usually shared with civilians.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday May 19 2016, @04:18PM
It's based on ADS-B transponder which is self-reporting device.
Real radar information is usually not released.
So what we know for sure is it lost all the power in a level flight at that spot.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 19 2016, @10:11AM
If you're a terrorist, you'd want to blow up the plane in Paris, not over the Med on the way to Cairo. If you're Israel, why shoot down a random passenger jet, risk discovery, and further erode the tenuous support you have in the American public?
Mechanical failure or the pilot pulled a stunt like that German pilot did a while back, purposely flying into the ground to commit suicide. Five flights/day would drive anybody nuts.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @11:13AM
It doesn't say the flights were all conducted by the same crew. And the most efficient use of an airframe is to keep it operating as much as possible. Five medium haul flights per day is nothing unusual.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @11:24AM
Given reports so far, no foul play seems likely. Something or someone went wrong.
One could say the same thing for all the auto accidents yesterday, which undoubtedly killed more people than this one plane. In USA alone the yearly total is ~30,000, so nearly 100 deaths per day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @01:56PM
(Score: 1) by martyb on Thursday May 19 2016, @02:08PM
Oops! Fixed. Should appear shortly. Thanks!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 19 2016, @02:52PM
I've read half a dozen different articles since I stumbled over this submission. For whatever reasons, Egypt is now stating that terrorisim is the "most likely" cause of this crash. It isn't clear whether they just can't imagine a technical reason, or maybe they've had some kind of communication.
It does seem weird that the plane would change course so erratically, before going down. It almost sounds like two or more people were fighting for control of the craft.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday May 19 2016, @02:59PM
Or one person (the pilot) was fighting the aircraft for control.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 19 2016, @03:07PM
I knew it would come to this! The pilot has to fight the autopilot for control!
I don't expect anyone to laugh at that, but, yeah, I guess you're probably right.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday May 19 2016, @04:22PM
Or autopilot was fighting both.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @06:41PM
Egypt is now stating that terrorisim is the "most likely" cause of this crash. It isn't clear whether they just can't imagine a technical reason, or maybe they've had some kind of communication.
Probably an over-reaction to getting it wrong about the last one - Metrojet Flight 9268.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 19 2016, @07:19PM
BBC--EgyptAir crash: Plane wreckage found near Greek island [bbc.com]
Reuters--EgyptAir jet missing after mid-air plunge, Greeks find life vests [reuters.com]
Egpytian Streets--Wreckage of EgyptAir Flight MS804 Has Been Found [egyptianstreets.com]
Last one has link to press release from EgyptAir on Facebook.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Thursday May 19 2016, @10:51PM
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday May 19 2016, @11:43PM
Was there any passenger on board that would been an interesting target for any organization?
Oh btw.. EgyptAir Flight 990 [wikipedia.org]