Egyptian jet with 66 people on board missing

An Egypt Air plane flying from Paris to Cairo with 56 passengers and 10 crew on board has disappeared from radars, the airline has tweeted. 

The Airbus A320 was flying at 37,000 feet (11,300 meters) when it went missing over the eastern Mediterranean, 10 miles into the Egyptian airspace.

An official said the plane lost contact with radar at 02:45 Cairo time (00:45 GMT), Press TV reported.

Another tweet said Egyp tAir “has contacted the concerned authorities and bodies and inspection is underway through the rescue teams.”

Aviation officials also said they believe the missing plane crashed into the sea.

Egypt’s state newspaper Ahram reported that there had been no distress call from the plane. The last contact with the pilot, it said, was about 10 minutes before the aircraft disappeared.

Greek Defense Ministry said it has deployed frigate, military aircraft to southern Mediterranean in an effort to locate the missing plane.

An Airbus A321 operated by Russia’s Metrojet crashed in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula on October 31, 2015, killing all 224 people on board.

The plane was likely brought down by a bomb, and the Daesh Takfiri group said it had smuggled an explosive on board.

In March, an EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked and forced to land in Cyprus by an “unstable” man who demanded to see his ex-wife.

M.A.