Egypt has rejected the decision of French BEA air accident investigation agency issued last Friday on the likelihood of a fire on an EgyptAir plane two years ago after taking off from Charles de Gaulle airport.
Egypt’s top prosecutor said in a statement Monday that the Egyptian investigation into the crash of Flight 804 is still underway. He said the French report is “baseless,” adding that “traces of explosives were found on the remains of passengers and parts of the plane.”
In May 2016, the Airbus aircraft crashed over the Mediterranean Sea, some 280 kilometers from the Egyptian coast. The incident left 66 people dead, including 40 Egyptians and 15 French citizens.
Egypt’s public prosecution said in a statement sent to journalists it was still conducting its investigation into the crash “in full cooperation with the French investigation side”.
“Reports on news sites suggesting that the cause of the crash was a fire inside the cockpit have no basis,” the statement said. The prosecution asserted that investigations are still ongoing and the report from the forensic medicine authority has confirmed the presence of traces of explosive materials on the victims’ body fragments as well as some metal, plastic and solid materials from the plane wreckage that were stuck to the body parts at the crash scene.
But “the BEA considers that the most likely hypothesis is that a fire broke out in the cockpit while the airplane was flying at its cruise altitude and that the fire spread rapidly resulting in the loss of control of the airplane,” the statement said.
BEA said the crew could be heard discussing a fire on the cockpit voice recorder and that the plane’s automatic ACARS messaging system had flagged up smoke on board.
It noted that Egyptian investigators had not published their final report, adding that the BEA was ready to resume work with Egyptian authorities.
