EgyptAir says plane carrying 66 disappears from radar

A bus carrying some passengers from a hijacked EgyptAir aircraft drives by the plane at Larnaca Airport in Cyprus Tuesday, March 29, 2016. The EgyptAir plane was hijacked on Tuesday while flying from the Egyptian Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria to the capital, Cairo, and later landed in Cyprus where some of the women and children were allowed to get off the aircraft, according to Egyptian and Cypriot officials. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

By Associated Press May 19, 2016 2 min read

CAIRO (AP) – An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo carrying 66 people disappeared from radar early Thursday morning, the airline said.

The plane most likely crashed into the sea, Ihab Raslan, a spokesman for the Egyptian civil aviation authority, told SkyNews Arabia. He said the plane was about to enter Egyptian airspace when it disappeared from radar. The airline, however, said the Airbus A320 had vanished 10 miles (16 kilometers) after it entered Egyptian airspace.

EgyptAir Flight 804 was lost from radar at 2:45 a.m. local time when it was flying at 37,000 feet, the airline said.

Egyptian armed forces were searching for the plane, which was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two babies, and 10 crew. The pilot had 6,000 flight hours. Earlier, the airline said 69 people were on board.

Airbus is aware of the disappearance, but “we have no official information at this stage of the certitude of an accident,” the company’s spokesman Jacques Rocca said.