EgyptAir Flight 804 was a regularly scheduled international passenger flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to Cairo International Airport, operated by EgyptAir. On 19 May 2016 at 02:33 Egypt Standard Time (UTC+2), the Airbus A320 crashed into the Mediterranean Sea, killing all 66 occupants on board.
No mayday call was received by air traffic control, although signals that smoke had been detected in one of the aircraft's lavatories and in the avionics bay were automatically transmitted via ACARS shortly before the aircraft disappeared from radar. The last communications from the aircraft prior to its submersion were two transmissions from its emergency locator transmitter that were received by the International Cospas-Sarsat Programme. Debris from the aircraft was found in the Mediterranean Sea approximately 290 km (180 mi) north of Alexandria. Nearly four weeks after the crash, several main sections of wreckage were identified on the seabed, and both flight recorders were recovered in a multinational search and recovery operation. On 29 June, Egyptian officials announced that the flight data recorder data indicated smoke in the aircraft, and that soot plus damage from high temperatures was found on some of the wreckage from the front section of the aircraft.
On 30 October 2024, two reports were released with conflicting conclusions about the cause of the crash. Egypt's Civil Aviation Authority, which headed the investigation, concluded that the crash was the result of an explosion occurring in the galley near the cockpit, which was rapidly engulfed by smoke and fire, exacerbated by oxygen flow being present. The French investigative agency BEA disagreed with this conclusion, instead finding that the fire was most likely a result of a fault in the oxygen mask.
Background
Aircraft
The aircraft involved, manufactured in 2003, was an Airbus A320-232, registered as SU-GCC with serial number 2088. It was equipped with two IAE V2527-A5 engines. The Airbus A320, introduced in 1988, is a twin-engine aircraft that can seat up to 180 passengers in a high-density layout, although it typically seats 150 passengers, and has a range of up to 6,480 kilometres (3,500 nmi). The aircraft involved was delivered new to Egyptair in November 2003, and had logged 48,052 flight hours in 20,773 flight cycles since its manufacture.
The flight was the aircraft's fifth that day, having flown from Asmara International Airport, Eritrea, to Cairo; then from Cairo to Tunis–Carthage International Airport, Tunisia, and back; the aircraft then departed for Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport via Cairo, from Tunis.
Passengers and crew
Fifty-six passengers from twelve different countries were on board. Three passengers were reported to be children, including two infants. Some of the passengers held multiple citizenship.
The crew of ten consisted of two pilots, five flight attendants, and three security personnel.
The captain, 36-year-old Mohamed Shoukair, had 6,640 hours of flying experience, including 2,108 hours on the A320. The first officer, 25-year-old Mohamed Assem, had 2,966 total flying hours, including 2,771 hours on the A320.
Flight
The aircraft departed for Cairo International Airport from Charles de Gaulle Airport on 18 May 2016 at 23:09 (all times refer to UTC+2, used in France and Egypt at the time). It disappeared from radar while flying at flight level 370 (about 37,000 ft (11,300 m) in altitude) in clear weather, 280 km (170 mi; 150 nmi) north of the Egyptian coast, and about the same distance from Kastellorizo, over the eastern Mediterranean on 19 May at 02:30. The aircraft crashed into the sea at around 02:33, when the last ACARS message was sent. The flight had lasted 3 hours 25 minutes.
The aircraft was due to land at 03:05. It was originally reported that a distress signal from emergency devices was detected by the Egyptian military at 04:26, two hours after the last radar contact; officials later retracted this statement.
On the day of the crash, Panos Kammenos, the Greek defence minister, noted the aircraft changed heading 90 degrees to the left, then turned 360 degrees to the right while it dropped from Flight Level 370 to 15,000 feet (4,600 m). This information was initially rejected on 23 May by an Egyptian official from the National Air Navigation Services Company, who stated that there was no change in altitude and no unusual movement before the aircraft disappeared from radar. It is possible that Egyptian radars were unable to track the aircraft as accurately as Greek radars due to their distance from the aircraft. On 14 June, Egyptian authorities confirmed the statements made by Greek officials. According to air-safety experts and veteran crash investigators, the initial left turn could have exceeded computer-controlled flight protections, and might also have come close to or exceeded the structural design limits of the aircraft.
Search and recovery efforts
Initial efforts
The Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry confirmed that search and rescue teams were deployed to look for the missing aircraft. Search efforts were carried out in coordination with Greek authorities. A spokesman for the Egyptian Civil Aviation Agency stated that the aircraft most likely crashed into the sea. Greece and France sent aircraft and naval ships to the area to participate in search and rescue efforts. The United Kingdom sent a naval ship, while the United States sent a naval aircraft.
Search area
On 20 May, units of the Egyptian Navy and Air Force discovered debris, body parts, passengers' belongings, luggage, and aircraft seats at the crash site, 290 km (180 mi; 160 nmi) off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. Two fields of debris were spotted from the air between 20 May at dusk and 23 May at dawn; one of them was 3 nmi (3.5 mi; 5.6 km) in radius. At this time, the searched area measured nearly 14,000 km2 (5,400 sq mi), with the sea being 2,440 to 3,050 metres (8,000 to 10,000 ft) deep there.
The European Space Agency (ESA) announced on 20 May that it had possibly detected a 2-kilometre-long (1.2 mi) fuel slick at 33°32′N 29°13′E / 33.533°N 29.217°E, about 40 kilometres (25 mi) southeast of the last known location of Flight 804, on imagery captured by its Sentinel-1A satellite at 16:00 UTC on 19 May.
On 26 May, it was reported that signals from the aircraft's emergency locator transmitter had been detected by satellite, which narrowed the area where the main wreckage was likely to be located on the seabed to within a radius of 5 kilometres (3 mi). An emergency locator transmitter usually activates at impact to send a radio distress signal; this is not the signal from an underwater locator beacon (ULB) attached to a flight recorder, which is an ultrasonic pulse. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that the emergency locator transmitter signal was received by satellites minutes after the airliner disappeared from radar. A "distress signal" received two hours after the disappearance of the aircraft, possibly originating from the emergency locator transmitter, had been reported already on 19 May; this report was denied by EgyptAir.
At the beginning of June, after ultrasonic pulses from a ULB of one of the flight recorders had been detected, a "priority search area" 2 kilometres (1 mi) in radius was established.
The John Lethbridge, a vessel belonging to Deep Ocean Search, equipped with a remotely operated underwater vehicle that can detect signals in depths of up to 6,000 metres (20,000 ft), and map the seabed, was contracted by Egyptian authorities. Capable of retrieving the flight recorders from the seabed, it left the Irish Sea on 28 May and, at that time, it was expected to arrive at the search area around 9 June, after stopping in the Egyptian Port of Alexandria to board Egyptian and French investigators. The vessel was delayed, arriving in Alexandria on 9 June and at the search area some time on or before 13 June. On 15 June, Egyptian authorities announced that searchers on board the John Lethbridge had identified several main sections of wreckage on the seabed. On 9 July, the Egyptian government reported it was extending the John Lethbridge's stay at the crash site, to 18 July. The John Lethbridge concluded its mission to recover human remains and returned to the port of Alexandria on 16 July. On arrival, the recovered remains were transferred from the John Lethbridge to Egypt's Department of Forensic Medicine in Cairo for DNA analysis and processing.
Flight recorders
On 22 May, an Egyptian remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV), owned by the country's Oil Ministry, was deployed to join the search for the missing aircraft. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi stated that the ROV can operate at a depth of 3,000 metres (9,840 ft). According to Egypt's chief investigator with the Civil Aviation Ministry, Ayman al-Moqadem, the ROV cannot detect signals from flight recorders.
A French Navy D'Estienne d'Orves-class aviso ship, the Enseigne de vaisseau Jacoubet, equipped with sonar able to detect the underwater "pings" emitted by the ULBs of the flight recorders, arrived at the possible crash site on 23 May. The French ship can deploy an ROV that can dive up to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) and that is able to detect signals from ULBs but with limited depth range.
On 26 May, Italian and French companies capable of executing deep-sea searches, including ALSEAMAR and the Mauritius-based Deep Ocean Search, were asked by Egypt to help locate the flight recorders.
A more specialized French Navy ship, the oceanographic research ship Laplace, left the Corsican port of Porto-Vecchio for the search area on 27 May, according to French aircraft accident investigation body the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA). The vessel can deploy three towed Alseamar hydrophone arrays that are designed to detect a ULB from a distance of up to nearly 4 kilometres (2 mi). On 1 June, the Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry reported that "pings" from a ULB of one of the flight recorders had been detected by the Laplace. This was confirmed by the BEA whose spokesperson announced the establishment of a "priority search area".
The survey ship John Lethbridge was at the search area by 13 June. The ULBs, which were activated on 19 May, are designed to last for at least 30 days; the Egyptian board of inquiry said the signals would continue until 24 June. On 16 June, Egyptian authorities announced that the searchers on the John Lethbridge had found the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), damaged, at a depth of 13,000 feet (4,000 m). The memory unit was retrieved intact and sent to Cairo for investigation, following the transfer of the CVR to Egyptian civil aviation officials in Alexandria. The next day it was announced that the John Lethbridge had been used to retrieve, in several pieces, the second flight recorder—the flight data recorder (FDR). The memory unit was recovered from the damaged flight data recorder but an Egyptian official stated that the flight recorders require extensive repair before they could be properly analyzed and accessed.
On 19 June, Egypt's Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee announced that they, with the assistance of the Egyptian Armed Forces, had completed the drying procedure of the intact memory modules and started electrical testing of the memory modules from both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder.
On 21 June, officials involved in the investigation disclosed that the memory chips from both recorders were damaged. After the initial attempts to download data from both recorders failed, the Egyptian investigative committee announced on 23 June that both recorders would be sent to France's BEA to have salt deposits from the memory chips removed; the recorders would then be returned to Egypt for analysis.
On 27 June, the BEA announced that the FDR had been repaired and sent back to Cairo for data analysis by civil aviation safety authorities.
Early responses
Initially, the disappearance and crash of Flight 804 was assumed to be linked to terrorism and insurgency in the region. For instance, the Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry stated on 19 May that Flight 804 was probably attacked. Two US officials believed the aircraft was downed by a bomb, and a senior official said that monitoring equipment focused on the area at the time detected evidence of an explosion on board the aircraft; other officials from multiple US agencies said they had seen no evidence of an explosion in satellite imagery and another two intelligence officials stated there is nothing yet to indicate foul play.
Investigation
According to Greek military radar data, Flight 804 veered off course shortly after entering the Egyptian flight information region. At Flight Level 370 (about 37,000 ft (11,300 m) in altitude), the aircraft made a 90-degree left turn, followed by a 360-degree right turn, and then began to descend sharply. Radar contact was lost at an altitude of about 10,000 ft (3,000 m). This information was later denied on 23 May by an Egyptian official from the National Air Navigation Services Company, who stated there was no change in altitude and no unusual movement before the aircraft disappeared from radar. On 14 June, Egyptian authorities confirmed the statements made by Greek officials.
On 19 May, Greece's Ministry of National Defence reported that it was investigating the report of a merchant ship captain who claimed to have seen a "fire in the sky" 240 km (150 mi; 130 nmi) south of the island of Karpathos.
Shortly after the disappearance, the French government began to investigate whether there had been a security breach at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.
ACARS messages