(Updated as new facts arrive)
6 Jul
- France’s BEA aircraft accident agency repaired the flight deck recorder. Recordings reveal an attempt to put out a fire on board the plane before it crashed into the Mediterranean.
29 Jun
-
EgyptAir black box recovered. Evidence suggests fire on board, consistent with SCARS messages of avionics smoke.
The second black box, containing cockpit audio recordings, is still being repaired in France’s BEA laboratories.
Nothing yet points to sabotage. Aviation officials increasingly believe the cause lies in the aircraft’s technical systems.
19 Jun
-
Egypt’s investigation committee confirmed that a vessel owned by Mauritius-based Deep Ocean Search was able to salvage one black box which was extensively damaged, but was able to retrieve the memory unit.
“The vessel’s equipment was able to salvage the part that contains the memory unit, which is considered the most important part of the recording device,” stated the Egypt’s investigation committee.
Searches for the second black box continue. The other black box contains the flight data recorder, but no signal for the second black box has yet been detected.
16 Jun
- The black boxes should stop emitting its signal in about 9 days.
15 jun
- The EgyptAir Wreckage has been found.
Egyptian investigators say several locations of the wreckage got identified. The first images of the wreckage had also got captured by the deep sea search vessel. The wreckage is 290 kilometers north of the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria and about 3000 M deep.
02 Jun
- A source from the Egyptian investigation told Reuters the search radius got reduced to 2 km (1.2 miles). Initially, the radius was about 5 km (3 miles).
01 Jun
- According to the Egyptian committee, the “Search equipment aboard French naval vessel Laplace detected signals from the seabed of the search area, which likely belong to one of the data boxes.” The BEA, France’s aviation accident bureau has already confirmed the signal came from one of the missing plane recorders. The equipment aboard the Laplace (the French search vessel) can pick up black box signals over distances up to 5 km (3 miles).
27 May
- The Egyptian chief investigator stated the search teams had picked up a beacon believed to be from EgyptAir Flight MS804. According to Ayman al-Moqadem, the search area has now been narrowed down to a 5 km (3.1 Miles) radius.
26 May
- A naval ship specially equipped for underwater searches from France will help find the flight recorders of the missing EgyptAir plane. According to Egyptian security officials, the naval ship has better equipment to find missing flight data.
25 May
- Al-Ahram, an Egyptian state-owned newspaper, reported that the aircraft technical log had shown no technical problems before taking off.
24 May
- Still no black boxes found. According to the Associated Press, the chief of EgyptAir says Egypt has contracted a French and an Italian company to help locate the plane’s black boxes.
23 May
- The Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos statement that upon entering Egyptian airspace the Paris to Cairo flight swerved “90 degrees left and then 360 degrees” before plunging was denied. According to what Mohi El-Din Azmi told the Egyptian state-run media Al-Ahram, the plane did not swerve or lose altitude. It maintained the 37,000 feet without any deviation until it disappeared from the radar screens, less than a minute after it entered the Egyptian airspace.
22 May
- Egyptian president speaks for the first time, since the plane disappeared, and wishes speculation to end until the crash causes are known.
- The presumed area of the missing EgyptAir plane is now being scanned by an Egyptian submarine.
21 May
- First plane debris found 180 miles (290 km) north of Alexandria.
- Black boxes are still missing. The black boxes capture flight data and records audio from the cockpit.
- Three different warnings showed faults in the windows next to the co-pilot.
- French authorities confirmed that smoke detectors went off aboard the flight. There are reports of a series of warnings indicating smoke filled the cabin. It’s still not clear what caused the smoke, fog (air pressure loss) or fire. This data got taken from the plane’s ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System system), which sends short transmissions from the aircraft to receivers on the ground.
- Investigators are still trying to determine the plane disappearing cause. Nothing has yet been conclusive towards terrorist act, human error or a technical fault.
- Most passengers were of Egyptian nationality. According to EgyptAir, there were 30 Egyptians, 15 French citizens, 2 Iraqis and one from (Britain, Canada, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, Chad, and Portugal).
20 May
- The MS804 EgyptAir plane carrying 66 (56 Passengers and 10 crew members) people disappeared while flying from Paris to Cairo. The plane disappeared from radar right off the Greek airspace and about 20 minutes away from the Cairo airport.
