EgyptAir flight MS804 crash – as it happened

We’re going to close up this liveblog now. Our coverage continues here:

And you can read our latest news story here:

Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Frence foreign minister, was this morning still refusing to draw conclusions about the cause of the crash, despite the Egyptian authorities already saying it was likely to have been a terrorist attack.

“We’re looking at all possibilities, but none is being favoured over the others because we have absolutely no indication on the causes (of the crash),” Jean-Marc Ayrault told French television, according to AFP.

The French government will meet families of the victims on Saturday in order to “provide all the information we can,” Ayrault said.

We now know a bit more about some of the crew members on board flight MS804.

The captain has been named as Mohamed Said Shoukair. EgyptAir said he was an experienced pilot, having clocked up 6,275 flying hours, including 2,101 on the A320.

His co-pilot and first officer has been named as Mohamed Mamdouh Ahmed Assem. He had 2,766 flying hours.

CNN reports both lived in Cairo.

The head flight attendant has been named as Mirvat Zaharia Zaki Mohamed.

Assem’s personal Facebook page has become a commemorative page, with tributes from friends and relatives.

This updated video explainer sets out the latest key points in the search for MS804 and the investigation into its disappearance.

Search and rescue efforts are still underway in the Mediterranean, but so far no confirmed sighting of wreckage has been made.

Reuters has more on the confusion over the debris that was first claimed – then denied – to be part of the plane:

The Egyptian civil aviation ministry initially said Greek authorities had found “floating material” and life jackets likely to be from the plane, an Airbus A320.

However, late on Thursday EgyptAir vice-president Ahmed Adel told CNN that the wreckage had not been found.

“We stand corrected on finding the wreckage because what we identified is not a part of our plane. So the search and rescue is still going on,” Adel said.

Greek defence sources told Reuters the material was discovered in the sea 370km (230 miles) south of the island of Crete.

Los Angeles international airport said it was stepping up security measures in the wake of the disappearance of the EgyptAir plane.

In a statement, the Los Angeles airport police said:

In light of the disappearance of EgyptAir flight MS804, we have heightened our security posture and enhanced our counter-terrorism security measures.

What do we know about why EgyptAir flight MS804 crashed?

Until the wreckage of the plane is found, it is near impossible to say with certainty what caused it to drop out of the sky from 37,000 feet. But this sets out what we actually do know at this stage of the investigation:

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been ramping up the rhetoric over the circumstances of the plane’s disappearance, telling supporters:

If anybody thinks it wasn’t blown out of the sky, you’re 100% wrong.

His Democrat rival Hillary Clinton said comments like Trump’s “make it more difficult” to get allies round the table to tackle terror, and doubted his qualifications as would-be president to take on the threat of terrorism.

This in turn prompted an angry response from the Trump campaign, which issued this statement:

Look at the carnage all over the world including the World Trade Center, San Bernardino, Paris, the USS Cole, Brussels and an unlimited number of other places.

She and our totally ignorant President won’t even use the term Radical Islamic Terrorism. And by the way, ask Hillary who blew up the plane last night – another terrible, but preventable tragedy.

More on our US election live blog:

The Australian government has said that one of the passengers on board the missing plane was an Australian-UK dual national.

It is unclear at this point if this is Richard Osman, so far identified as the only Briton on the flight.

Hello, this is Claire Phipps picking up the live blog again.

We have now learned the names of some of the crew aboard MS804.

The captain has been named as Mohamed Said Shoukair.

Mohamed Mamdouh Ahmed was the first officer, and Mirvat Zaharia Zaki Mohamed was the head flight attendant.

Though officials have said terrorism is the most likely cause of MS804’s disappearance and assumed crash, a US intelligence review have of satellite imagery has so far not shown evidence of an explosion, Reuters reports.

Reuters cites officials from several US agencies.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the conclusion was the result of a preliminary examination of imagery and cautioned against media reports suggesting the United States believed a bomb was responsible for the crash.

The United States has not ruled out any possible causes for the crash, including mechanical failure, terrorism or a deliberate act by the pilot or crew, they said.

National security adviser Ben Rhodes has meanwhile told reporters that the White House is not making any claims about what happened to the missing plane.

Egypt’s government has published a video of its search mission, posting on YouTube with the title: “efforts by the Egyptian navy and air force to find the missing airplane”.

Egyptian and Greek authorities appear to have gotten on the same page, at least to some degree: EgyptAir has retracted its earlier “confirmation” of found debris to CNN.

The airline has yet to make any public statement, but multiple CNN editors and correspondents are reporting that they managed to contact EgyptAir.

Earlier on Thursday the airline’s vice-president personally told CNN he could confirm that MS804 debris had been recovered, only for that report to be contradicted by Greek officials assisting with the search.

Egypt’s investigation faces difficult obstacles to finding out what exactly brought down MS804, Reuters reports – including basic coordination with other nations.

Egypt will lead the probe with the help of officials from France, where the 12-year-old jet was built and which had the second-largest number of people on board after Egypt, Ayman al-Moqadem, head of Egypt’s air accident agency, said.

A French minister said three investigators from the BEA air crash investigation agency were on their way to Egypt, together with an expert from Airbus.

There was no immediate word on whether the United States, where engine maker Pratt & Whitney is based, would take part.

Under global aviation rules, the country that produced the engines can expect to take part in an air crash investigation.

But a US official said US agencies there fear Egypt will try to keep American investigators at arms length due to historical tensions which date back to the crash of EgyptAir 990 off the U.S. coast in 1999.

Relations between Egyptian and US aviation agencies have been tense since US investigators publicly concluded that a suicidal co-pilot deliberately crashed the Boeing 767.

Egyptian investigators accused the National Transportation Safety Board of twisting evidence to support its suicide theory and produced their own report citing technical problems.

Relations also appeared cool following the bombing of a Russian jet equipped with similar engines over Sinai in October.

“I think certainly during the early and even middle part of that investigation ... a lot of our people were kept at arm’s length,” U. House Intelligence Committee member Adam Schiff told MSNBC.

Safety experts said Egypt had moved noticeably more quickly this time to discuss possible causes including terrorism, though other technical flaws or human error could not be ruled out.

“This is going to be a difficult investigation,” a former investigator familiar with the region said.

Egypt said investigators would start searching for black boxes and gather evidence as soon as the crash site was found.

France’s BEA is expected to play a major role in the underwater hunt after leading the search for an Air France jet that crashed in the Atlantic in 2009 and an Egyptian jet that crashed off Sharm el-Sheikh in 2004, killing French tourists.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has ordered the civil aviation ministry, the army’s search and rescue center, the navy, and the air force “to take all necessary measures to locate debris,” Reuters reports.

In a statement issued by his office, Sisi also ordered an investigative committee formed by the civil aviation ministry to immediately start investigating the causes of the plane’s disappearance.

The Egyptian military has said it did not receive a distress call, the AP reports, though Egypt’s state-run daily Al-Ahram quoted an unidentified airport official as saying the pilot did not send one.

The absence of a distress call suggests that whatever sent the aircraft plummeting into the sea was sudden and brief.

The crash of MS804 has again raised fears again about the safety of flying to Egypt and airport security in general, my colleague Gwyn Topham reports.

In France as in Egypt, the insider threat from airport staff, whether radicalised or induced, has been raised by security experts, who point to the number of screening, baggage, catering, technical and cleaning staff with access to planes.

One leading expert privately expressed concern about Paris’s major airport, which has had a history of terror-related activity as well as being a target; notoriously, the British shoe bomber Richard Reid travelled from Brussels to Charles de Gaulle to board a flight to Miami in 2001 despite security agents’ concerns.

Under the state of emergency in France, authorities have searched the lockers of airport staff and carried out checks on the thousands of employees with passes for sensitive airside areas of the airport - revoking access for dozens of staff. Bans on taking liquids or gels through security screening have since been applied to airport and airline crew as well as passengers.

The EgyptAir flight was travelling with three security officers aboard, which has been normal procedure for some decades for numerous airlines in the Middle East. It was not carrying cargo. The security officers would have travelled throughout the plane’s various sectors in the previous 24 hours, which included stops at Carthage airport in Tunis and the Eritrean capital, Asmara.

Despite the wider unrest in Eritrea and the terror threat within Tunisia, where 38 tourists were killed by a local gunman last year, security experts say it is no more likely that any explosive device would have been placed on the plane in north Africa than in Paris.

Norman Shanks, former head of security at Heathrow, said European regulations required security screening on every aircraft on a turnaround: “The search wouldn’t be the responsibility of the airport, but the airline, which would either do it themselves or employ a contractor.” That would normally mean checking passenger areas, overhead bins, under seats and all compartments of the aircraft, he said, but added: “How detailed a search it would be is down to the people involved.”

David Gleave, an air accident investigator and aviation expert at Loughborough University, said that planting a bomb earlier in the itinerary was no more likely than in Paris: “EgyptAir had three security guards and there are thorough inspection procedures. Leaving a bomb onboard during five sectors [separate journeys] is possible but leaves a lot of issues about it exploding at the right point.

“Barometric timing [triggering through changing air pressure] doesn’t seem to be possible, and the longer you leave a bomb in a plane the more likely it is to be discovered.”

Military radar could show the movements of large segments of a plane that had suffered a catastrophic breakup, Gleave said.

He said the black boxes, designed to survive the impact, should be relatively easy to retrieve in the Mediterranean compared to other searches - certainly that of MH370. Investigators from the UK AAIB, with recent experience of recovering wreckage from the North Sea coastline, have offered assistance.

The US State Department does yet not intend to issue a travel warning to Egypt, spokesman John Kirby has told reporters at a briefing in Washington.

He says it’s too early to make any decisions with respect to the plane crash, and is “not aware that we recorded, saw, photographed or have possession of any electronic indications about what happened”.

The Pentagon’s spokesperson, Peter Cook, is giving a simultaneous briefing. “We did not have any ships in the immediate area,” he says, but a navy P3 aircraft is helping with the search and recovery mission. The P3 has been flying for several hours over the region.

Meanwhile, Democratic frontrunner for president Hillary Clinton appears to agree with her Republican rival Donald Trump, about an apparent cause of the plane crash.

France’s Accident Investigating Bureau has sent a team of three investigators to Cairo, accompanied by a technical expert from Airbus, the AP reports.

The BEA said the team was leaving on Thursday night. In a statement, it said “the BEA could notably counsel Egyptian authorities on the organization of an underwater search to locate the plane and the black boxes.”

The BEA said it was taking part in the probe as a representative of the country where the plane was conceived. Airbus, based in Toulouse, has said it was sending a technical expert and could send more if needed.

Back in the US, White House press secretary Josh Earnest has said he’s still not sure whether France, Greece and Egypt will accept the offer of aid from American teams, and that Barack Obama has not spoken with Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi today.

EgyptAir has tweeted search teams near the island of Karpathos have found apparent airplane parts, including floating materials likely to be wreckage, life jackets and plastic materials.

The wording from the airline’s Twitter account is cautious, but complements reports on debris from Reuters and CNN

Egypt’s envoy to France has said that Greek authorities have told the Egyptian embassy in Athens that they’ve found “blue and white debris”, Reuters reports.

Nearly simultaneously, CNN reports that the vice-president of EgyptAir has told one of its correspondents: “we have found the wreckage.”

Earnest clarifies that there are enhanced security screenings for “international aircraft that are bound for the United States,” and that because the EgyptAir flight was bound from Paris to Cairo it wasn’t subject to these extra measures.

He says he doesn’t have any details at the moment on “how those advanced security measures have disrupted plots but we do believe that applying that expertise from the TSA … even at foreign airports does enhance the safety and security of Americans traveling abroad.”

He also clarifies his comment about Paris’ Charles De Gaulle Airport: “I can’t offer a security assessment of any airport around the world … there’s no specific concern that’s been raised that I’m aware of.”

A US navy aircraft is helping with the search for debris, he says. In 2015, he adds, TSA specialists “performed 289 air carrier inspections and 146 foreign airport assessments”. The security officers also deploy canine teams.

The White House has offered assistance to European and Middle East allies, saying that the Department of Homeland Security and TSA have been in contact with foreign ministries and aviation departments to help improve security measures.

Press secretary Josh Earnest says though that it’s too early to say what could have caused the EgyptAir crash. “We have seen a desire on the part of extremists around the world, including some extremists in the Middle East, to carry out attacks targeting the international aviation system. We obviously are mindful of that.”

But says there are no particular concerns about the Paris airport as a specific case. “We’ve obviously learned a lot since 9/11 about what’s necessary to protect the aviation system but that has not diminished the desire of some extremist organizations to try to carry out attacks.”

Earnest adds that the US is “constantly adapting” security measures, and also offers condolences to the families of passengers and crew on the flight.

He says that he’s not aware of “any intelligence assessment that’s ruled anything out” nor any that’s “ruled anything in”. “It’s still quite early.”

Earlier on Thursday, US secretary of state John Kerry has declined to “speculate” on any possible cause of the flight’s disappearance, telling reporters in Brussels that he does not think even the experts have enough evidence to start developing an idea of what happened.

EgyptAir says it still has no confirmation that debris has been found off the coast of Crete.

Greek defence sources have told multiple news agencies that two large plastic floating objects have been found in the sea 230 nautical miles from Crete.

“There have been finds southeast of Crete, inside the Cairo flight information area,” Greek general staff spokesman Vassilis Beletsiotis said earlier.

Tarek Wahba, the captain of the Maersk Ahram, a ship involved in the search and rescue operation, has posted some pictures on his Facebook account showing debris floating in the sea, which he describes as a “lifejacket and a chair.

We have no confirmation if the debris has anything to do with flight MS804 or where it was found.

Our correspondent in Paris Kim Willsher says the EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo is departing now. Families of the passengers on the missing plane are believed to be onboard this flight.

The US Navy says it has dispatched a P-3 Orion long-range aircraft to support the search for an EgyptAir plane. President Obama was briefed earlier on the crash by counter-terror advisors.

“US Commander Sixth Fleet is working with the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Greece and the US Defence Attache in Athens, Greece to provide US Navy P-3 Orion support in the search of the missing Egyptian aircraft,” the US navy said in a statement.

The surveillance plane had been sent from the naval air station Sigonella in Sicily.

Some more details are emerging about the passengers who were on the plane, among them a young military student from Chad who was flying home to mourn his mother.

The protocol officer for Chad’s embassy in Paris, Muhammed Allamine, said the passenger was a student at France’s Saint-Cyr military academy. The man has not been named.

He said the man “was going to give condolences to his family,” according to AFP.

One of the 30 Egyptians onboard was a man returning from medical treatment in France, according to two friends who came to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport, telling AP they were heart-broken.

Kuwait’s foreign ministry has also confirmed one of its citizens, Abdulmohsen al-Muteiri, was on board the plane. His nephew spoke to the Guardian at Cairo airport earlier, saying he was a professor of economics and a father of two, who was excited to be heading to Cairo for a three-day conference.

• This section of the live blog was amended on 20 May 2016. An earlier version said that the military student from Chad was flying home to visit his mother.

A Greek military official has said an Egyptian search plane located two orange objects believed to be from the missing flight, AP reports.

The official says the items were found 230 miles south-southeast of the island of Crete but still within the Egyptian air traffic control area.

One of the items was oblong, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations.

The head of Russia’s domestic intelligence agency has said he believes the plane was brought down by a terror attack “in all likelihood”.

Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service, called for governments to come together to track down those responsible for the “monstrous attack.”

The first EgyptAir flight from Paris since the crash is boarding now, though to be carrying families of passengers, according to AP’s Raphael Satter.

British pilot Alan Carter has told the BBC he was flying a B 747 in same airspace at almost exactly the same time that the EgyptAir plane went down.

He called the conditions “perfect” and said there had been no issues with lines of communications.

All air traffic communications were operating normal. I spoke to Athens radar and remarked how quiet it was, and they told me there were only five planes in the area.

A meeting hosted by Italy’s prime minister of Europe’s left-wing political leaders, including French President Francois Hollande, has been cancelled following the EgyptAir crash.

The meeting had been due to discuss the refugee crisis and the forthcoming UK referendum on EU membership. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven had all been due to attend, Reuters reports.

Rukmini Callimachi, the New York Times journalist who focuses on Islamic State, says there is no claim of responsibility as yet or anything to indicate that IS terrorism is to blame for the plane’s disappearance.

It’s worth noting that IS claimed responsibility for the downing of Metrojet Flight 9268 over the Sinai on October 31 by that afternoon.

Outside Cairo airport terminal, families are slowly leaving, distraught and frustrated by the lack of information, writes Lara El Gibaly.

“They haven’t said anything to us. We have no information,” said Mervat Mounir, whose relative Samar Ezzeldin was one of the seven Egyptian cabin crew on board. The 27-year-old had been a flight attendant with EgyptAir for two years and recently got married.

Michery el Soheil came to the airport hoping for news of his uncle Abdelmohsen Soheil, a Kuwaiti professor of economics and a father of two, who was heading to Cairo for a three-day conference.

“We had called him just before he boarded and everything was fine, he was excited to be coming to Cairo,” said Michery.

Describing the situation in the relatives’ waiting hall, he said: “Everyone inside is waiting for any bit of information, we feel powerless. But we are praying for their souls. If anyone was alive, they would have found them by now.”

Security personnel outside the hall say fewer than a dozen families remain inside. Many of those who have left have gone to the nearby Le Passage hotel, where EgyptAir is offering the families accommodation.

Signs of possible wreckage were found off the Greek island of Crete, a Greek military spokesman told AFP.

“There have been finds southeast of Crete, inside the Cairo flight information area,” general staff spokesman Vassilis Beletsiotis said. He added that an Egyptian C-130 plane had spotted the floating objects, and ships would be sent to investigate.

An RAF landing ship has been ordered to help in the search, according to the BBC’s defence correspondent Jonathan Beale. Defence secretary Michael Fallon has also offered to deploy a Hercules aircraft.

Barack Obama has been briefed on the EgyptAir crash according to the White House.

The briefing was given by Lisa Monaco, adviser for homeland security and counter-terrorism, Reuters reported.

Obama asked to be updated throughout the day and directed administration officials to reach out to their international counterparts to offer support and assistance, deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said in a statement.

Greek state-run TV is confirming that debris from the missing EgyptAir plane has been found 230 nautical miles west of the Mediterranean island of Crete, writes Helena Smith.

Officials are expressing alarm and surprise that the wreckage -as yet officially unidentified - has been sited so far away from the site where the Airbus is believed to have come down, more than 100 nautical miles away off the southeastern island of Karpathos.

Winds in the area are southerly and would not precipitate such movement. The debris was identified by an Egyptian C-295 aircraft. Greek media is reporting that the debris could be life jackets.

Earlier Greece’s civil aviation authority issued a statement saying that the pilot of the fated EgyptAir plane was “in good spirits” when the country’s air traffic controllers made contact with crew.

At 02.48 AM, just before MS804 exited Greek airspace. “The pilot was in good spirits and thanked [us] in Greek,” the civil aviation authority said.

At 03:27 despite “repeated” efforts to make contact with crew again, “the pilot did not answer,” the authority added.

“At 03:29 the plane’s signal vanished from the radar approximately 7 nautical miles south/southeast of the point of Kumbi, in Cairo FIR,” the statement said.

Greek sources have told the Guardian that the possibility of a suicide bomber or explosive being the cuase of the crash “is very real.” Greece has mounted a search and rescue operation off the southeastern Aegean island of Karpathos where the Airbus is believed to come down.

In his briefing to reporters Fathy admitted that the Egyptian authorities mistakenly reported that a signal was received two hours after air traffic control lost contact with MS804.

He said: “There was a mistake made by an official somewhere. He talked about a signal and then a few minutes after he came back and apologised, and he came back and said ‘sorry there was no signal’. After his first statement we all went to the press and said the signal was received, thereafter we denied that and we admit there was a mistake that happened.”

More on that possible find via Reuters:

A Greek frigate searching for a missing Egyptair aircraft discovered two large plastic floating objects in a sea area 230 miles south of the island of Crete on Thursday, Greek defence sources said.

The two objects appeared to be pieces of plastic in white and red. They were spotted close to an area where a transponder signal was emitted earlier, the sources said.

“I am not happy with people making assumptions, while we haven’t found the wreckage yet”, Fahy said in English in response to some bad tempered questions.

He said he didn’t know how big the search radius was. It was between Crete and another Greek island he said, after also mentioning the island of Karpathos.

Fathy says there were no known security issues with passengers on the plane. Asked whether there had been increase terrorist “chatter” before the plane disappeared, Fathy said: “not according to my information”.

He also insisted that air travel to Egypt remained safe.

Fathy confirmed that the plane made a stop in Tunisia before the flight to Paris.

He also said nothing should be concluded from reported sightings of flashes in the sky at the time of plane’s disappearance.

Fathy confirms that the search operation is focused near the Greek Island of Karpathos. Earlier a Greek aviation source told AFP that the plane came down 130 nautical miles from the island.

Egypt’s prosecutor general has ordered a state security investigation into the missing plane. Meanwhile, Egypt’s aviation minister Sherif Fathy continues to bat away question.

“When I have facts I will tell you the facts,” Fathy tells an increasingly rowdy press conference. “What else can I do?” he asks reporters.

Earlier Fathy said a terror attack or technical problems could not be ruled out as possible causes of the crash. Fathy said he did not know where the plane was.

Our map on the flight’s last movements has been updated

France’s parliament has confirmed a two-month extension of the state of emergency that has been in place since November’s attacks on Paris.

The extension will cover the Euro 2016 football tournament and the Tour de France.

“The terrorist threat remains at a high level and France, like the EU, is a target,” said Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve ahead of the vote.

The state of emergency was imposed following the 13 November attacks that left 130 people dead in the French capital, and was already extended by three months in February until 26 May.

The UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) has offered assistance.

The organisation’s chief inspector, Keith Conradi, said: “We were saddened to hear that EgyptAir Flight MS804 was reported missing this morning. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch has offered to assist the Egyptian authorities with their investigation.”

Fathy urges the media to stop speculating about what caused the crash. He said terrorism and technical causes could not be ruled out.

The last contact was at 2.30am, he confirms. At 2.50 there were failed attempts to contact the plane, he adds.

Egypt’s minister of civil aviation, Sherif Fathy, starts his press conference by stating it has been “difficult day”. He says he will continue to use the phrase “missing plane” until debris is found.

Britain’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, has confirmed that a British passport holder was on board the plane.

Greek defence sources are describing time frame between 03:27 to 03:29 as “critical point”, writes Helena Smith.

It was in this two minute period when the plane made a 90 degree swerve left and dropped from 37,000 feet to 15,000 feet before swerving 360 degrees right and vanishing at 10,000 feet ten to 15 miles inside Egyptian air space.

The Greek defence minister Panos Kammenos told reporters in Athens that the country had also scrambled F16 fighter jets to participate in the operation to locate the aircraft off the south eastern Aegean island of Karpathos.

Greek officials are hoping satellite footage may help locate the wreckage.

That press conference by Egypt civil aviation is about to get underway - later than scheduled.

Our latest news story on the crash takes in those comments from François Hollande.

Egypt’s president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has chaired a meeting of the country’s national security council.

His office issued this account of the meeting:

The meeting addressed the disappearance of the EgyptAir flight en route from Paris to Cairo. Minister of Civil Aviation Sherif Fathy presented a report detailing the information available so far on the plane’s disappearance. The National Security Council decided to continue search efforts through Egyptian aircraft and naval vessels and work on unraveling the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the plane at the soonest time possible in collaboration with countries including France and Greece. The council also directed the government to provide all assistance possible to the families of the passengers and crew. It also directed EgyptAir crisis centre to follow up on the development of the situation and announce the latest information.

No debris has been found, according to another update from the Greek defence minister via Reuters. Greece has also asked for help on sifting through satellite information on the flight.

Reuters has this first take on Hollande’s statement, plus news that French prosecutors have launched an investigation.

No hypothesis can so far be ruled out about the fate of an EgyptAir plane that went missing on its way from Paris to Cairo, French President Francois Hollande said.

“Unfortunately the information we have ... confirms to us that the plane came down and is lost,” Hollande said. “No hypothesis can be ruled out, nor can any be favoured over another.”

Separately, Paris prosecutors said that they were opening an investigation into matter.

The director of Greece’s Civil Aviation Authority says air traffic controllers were in contact with the pilot of the EgyptAir flight as it passed through Greek airspace, AP reports.

The director, Konstantinos Lintzerakos, said the plane was at 37,000 feet, traveling at 519 mph, and did not report any problem.

Lyzerakos told private Antenna television that controllers tried to make contact with the pilot 10 miles before the flight exited the Greek Flight Information Range (FIR), but the pilot did not respond. Lyzerakos says controllers continued trying to contact the pilot until 3:39 a.m. Greek time (12.39 GMT) when the plane disappeared from the radar.

Lyzerakos says the plane was in Cairo’s FIR when it vanished.

MarineTraffic, a shipping tracking website, has put together an updated video on the ships joining the search in the Mediterranean for the missing plane.

Greek aircraft have joined the sea search for the missing plane, according to the BBC’s Quentin Sommerville.

There has been an unconfirmed report that the plane came down 130 miles off the Greek Island of Karpathos.

Medical staff have been seen entering Cairo airport hall where families of passengers of the missing EgyptAir plane await news of their loved ones, Lara El Gibaly reports.

Lara El Gibaly is at Cairo international airport where she has been talking to friends and relatives of the missing passengers.

“There’s no information inside. They’re not telling us anything for sure,” said one young woman who did not disclose her name.

She said she had come to the arrival hall in the hope of hearing news of her friend Samar, one of the 30 Egyptian passengers on board the missing flight.

The Foreign Office says it is working closely with the Egyptian and French authorities, after EgyptAir confirmed that a Briton was on board the missing plane.

“Our staff are in contact with the family of a British national believed to be onboard and are providing support,” a spokesman told PA.

Jean-Paul Troadec, former president of the French air accident investigation bureau (BEA) was asked by Europe 1 to speculate on what caused the plane’s disappearance.

He said:

“We have to remain very careful after the disappearance from the radars of the EgyptAir aircraft. The priority is to begin the investigation and to find, if possible, debris from the aircraft and eventually, the site of the wreckage. We can make certain hypotheses...there’s a strong possibility of an explosion on board from a bomb or a suicide bomber. The idea of a technical accident when weather conditions were good, seems also possible but not that likely. We could also consider a missile, which is what happened to the Malaysia Airlines aircraft in July 2014.

“If the crew didn’t send an alert signal, it’s because what happened was very sudden. A problem with an engine or a technical fault, would not produce an immediate accident. In this case, the crew did not react, which makes us think of a bomb.”

There is still no official confirmation that the plane has crashed, but EgyptAir officials and the Egyptian civil aviation department have told Reuters they believed the jet came down in the sea.

“The theory that the plane crashed and fell is now confirmed after the preliminary search and after it did not arrive at any of the nearby airports,” said a senior aviation source, who declined to be identified.

The source added: “All causes for the disaster are open, whether it is a major technical fault or a terrorist action or any other circumstance. This will be ascertained when we inspect the plane’s wreckage and transcribe its black boxes.”

Meanwhile, a Greek defence ministry source said authorities were also investigating an account from the captain of a merchant ship who reported a ‘flame in the sky’ about 130 nautical miles south of the island of Karpathos.

The boat tracking site MarineTraffic reports that eight boats have joined the search for the missing plane.

Here’s a map showing the last known position of missing flight MS804.

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, has discussed the missing plane in a telephone call with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry.

The French embassy in Cairo said Ayrault expressed the solidarity of France with Egypt, “in this terrible ordeal”.

Ayrault is also reported to have set up a “crisis cell” at the French embassy in Cairo. EgyptAir said 15 of the people on board were French nationals.

Egypt’s Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said it was too early to rule out any explanation for the incident, including terrorism, Reuters reports.

“Search operations are ongoing at this time for the airplane in the area where it is believed to have lost contact,” he told reporters at Cairo airport.

Asked by a journalist if he could rule out that terrorists were behind the incident, Ismail said: “We cannot exclude anything at this time or confirm anything. All the search operations must be concluded so we can know the cause.”

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will chair a national security council meeting on Thursday morning, a statement from his office said.

Airbus has issued a statement confirming that MS804 was lost over the Mediterrean at 2.30am local time. It has not confirmed a report that the plane crashed.

Here’s the statement:

Airbus regrets to confirm that an A320 operated by Egyptair was lost at around 02:30 am (Egypt local time) today over the Mediterranean sea. The aircraft was operating a scheduled service, Flight MS 804 from Paris, France to Cairo, Egypt.

The aircraft involved, registered under SU-GCC was MSN (Manufacturer Serial Number) 2088 delivered to Egyptair from the production line in November 2003. The aircraft had accumulated approximately 48,000 flight hours. It was powered by IAE engines. At this time no further factual information is available.

In line with ICAO annex 13, Airbus stands-by ready to provide full technical assistance to French Investigation Agency - BEA - and to the Authorities in charge of the investigation.

The first A320 entered service in March 1988. At the end of April 2016 over6700 A320 Family aircraft were in operation worldwide. To date, the entire fleet has accumulated nearly 180 million flight hours in over 98 million flights.

Our concerns go to all those affected.

Airbus will make further factual information available as soon as the details have been confirmed and cleared by the authorities for release.

Egypt’s minister of Civil Aviation Sherif Fathy is due to hold press conference, but not for almost three hours.

Daily News Egypt says the press conference by Sherif Fathy is due to take place at 1pm local time (12pm BST).

The fact that three of the 10 crew on the flight were security officers is “the usual practice”, Alain Vidalies, the French transport minister, has said.

EgyptAir said there were three security personnel on board, alongside two cockpit crew and five cabin crew.

Lara El Gibaly reports from Cairo international airport:

Outside the terminal, doctors, and nurses, as well as military personnel, have been seen going into the hall where relatives of the passengers of the missing plane are being kept.

The Egyptian aviation ministry has announced a press conference due to take place at 1.30pm local time (11.30am GMT).

Confusingly, a statement posted on the official Facebook page of the Egyptian army says the army did not receive a distress signal from the plane.

It is not clear whether this contradicts the EgyptAir report that a signal was received from the plane’s emergency devices – presumed to be a locator transmitter or beacon – at 04.26 local time (02.26 GMT), two hours after the last radar contact. It could refer to the previous statement by EgyptAir that no distress call was received from the cockpit.

In the army statement, the spokesman of the Egyptian army, Brigadier General Mohammed Samir, said the army had not received any distress call from the missing plane.

A statement from Egypt’s civil aviation ministry says it is too early to conclude that the missing plane has crashed.

It is now seven hours since flight MS804 disappeared from the radar.

EgyptAir has protested at what it calls “misinformation” about potential causes and outcomes of the disappearance and asked media to wait for official updates.

(We are avoiding speculation in this live blog.)

The European Aviation Safety Agency is also treading carefully:

French prime minister Manuel Valls says France has offered to send planes and boats to help the search for missing EgyptAir flight.

French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said:

Everything must be done to find the plane, that’s why we’re in contact with the Egyptian authorities.

We are mobilising and ready to send our military means, planes and boats, to search for this plane.

French transport minister Alain Vidalies confirmed the report from EgyptAir that there was no cargo on board the Airbus A320.

Here’s a rundown of what we do and don’t know so far about the missing flight:

The French foreign office has set up an emergency phone line for people worried about relatives and friends on flight MS804:

The Egyptian prime minister, Sherif Ismail, is at Cairo international airport, EgyptAir says:

(Ismail is a former engineer.)

The Egyptian navy, air force and coastguard are all involved in the search for the missing plane, reports from Cairo say.

Greece has also joined the search, taking place around 280km north of the Egyptian coast in the Mediterranean, sending two aircraft and a frigate. Greece said it also had helicopters on standby in case rescue operations were necessary.

There is some confusion over this new distress signal, reported to have been received at 04.26 local time (02.26 GMT).

This is two hours after the last confirmed contact via radar, which was at 02.30 local time (00.30 GMT).

But it is possible that the later signal, which has been described in some reports as a distress call, could have been an automated distress signal from an emergency locator beacon.

The UK foreign office in London could not confirm reports that a British national was on board the missing the Airbus.

A spokeswoman gave this statement:

Following reports that EgyptAir flight MS804 has gone missing en route from Paris to Cairo, we are in urgent contact with the local authorities in Paris and Cairo to obtain further information.

French prime minister Manuel Valls says “no theory can be ruled out” in investigating the disappearance of MS804, which left Paris Charles de Gaulle airport late on Wednesday night.

Speaking to RTL radio on Thursday morning, Valls said:

We are in close contact with the Egyptian authorities, both civil and military.

The Egyptian authorities have already sent air reconnaissance teams to the site, and France is ready to help with the search if the Egyptian authorities ask, of course.

At this stage, no theory can be ruled out regarding the causes of the disappearance.

EgyptAir has said 15 of the 56 passengers on board the missing plane are French.

The French government will hold an emergency meeting in around half an hour to discuss the plane’s disappearance, the French president’s office has said.

President François Hollande has already spoken to his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Hollande’s office said, and the two countries would be cooperating to establish the circumstances of the plane’s disappearance.

Reports from Egypt suggest search and rescue efforts are focusing on the Mediterranean; Greece is also assisting in the search.

Flightradar24 pinpoints the last recorded point of contact with the plane, which was travelling at just under 37,000 feet:

EgyptAir has also just updated information about the time contact with the plane was lost, now saying it was 2.30am local time (00.30 GMT/01.30 BST/10.30 AEST), and not 2.45am, as it earlier stated.

Lara El Gibaly sends this update from Cairo international airport:

Terminal 3 has been closed off except for passengers. Other flights are operating normally.

According to airport security, the families of passengers of the EgyptAir flight have been relocated to a lounge in terminal 1, where an emergency team is monitoring the situation.

The New York Times cites Ehab Mohy el-Deen, head of the Egyptian air navigation authority.

He says Greek air traffic controllers notified their Egyptian counterparts that they had lost contact with the plane, the NYT reports.

They did not radio for help or lose altitude. They just vanished.

He said it was too early to speculate on causes and outcomes, “but this is not normal, of course”.

Here is the scene at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, where it is currently around 7.20am:

An EgyptAir passenger jet carrying 66 people has vanished en route to Cairo.

The flight departed from Paris on Wednesday evening and lost contact with ground crews at 2.45am local time, about 16km (10 miles) inside Egyptian airspace.

The 12-year-old Airbus A320-232 was about 40 minutes from its destination. It was the aircraft’s fifth flight of the day, including journeys to Asmara, Eritrea and Carthage in Tunisia.

The airline’s vice-chairman, Ahmed Abdel, told CNN the plane made no distress call.

There were “no recorded snags coming out of Cairo” or reported before leaving Charles de Gaulle, he said.

The captain had also recorded more than 6,000 flying hours, including 2,000 hours in that model, Abdel said. There had not been any special cargo or notification of dangerous goods on board, he added.

Greece has joined the search and rescue operation for the EgyptAir flight, Associated Press reports.

Two aircraft, one C-130 Hercules and one early warning aircraft, have been dispatched, officials at the Hellenic national defence general staff said.

They said one frigate was also heading to the area, and helicopters are on standby on the southern island of Karpathos for potential rescue or recovery operations.

Airbus, the manufacturer of the missing A320 aircraft, says it has “no further details” on MS804, but will issue a statement later:

Flight MS804 has now been missing for four hours: last contact was at 02.45 local time. It is now 06.45 in Cairo, where it has been daylight for close to two hours.

Reuters cites a French airport official saying of flight MS804:

It did not land, that is all we can say for the moment.

Associated Press reports that Ihab Raslan, a spokesman for the Egyptian civil aviation agency, told SkyNews Arabia that the Airbus A320 most likely crashed into the sea.

However, he also said the plane was about to enter Egyptian airspace when it disappeared from radar, contradicting the airline, which said it was 10 miles (16km) inside Egyptian airspace when contact was lost.

It is not uncommon for conflicting information to surface at this stage – the number of those on board has already been adjusted from 69 to 66.

According to Airsafe.com, the Airbus A320 – considered a safe and reliable aircraft – has been involved in a number of incidents, including:

• A runway slide by an AirCanada jet near Halifax, Canada, on 29 March last year (23 injuries).
• A Germanwings flight that was deliberately piloted into a mountain near Barcelonnette, France, on 24 March 2015 (150 deaths).
• An AirAsia flight that crashed into the Java Sea avoiding inclement weather on 28 December 2014 (162 deaths).
• A US Airways flight that was forced to make an emergency landing on the Hudson river in New York after suffering engine failure on 15 January 2009.

This graphic from Flightradar24 shows what it believes to be the last satellite communication from the plane, which tallies with the report from EgyptAir’s Ahmed Abdel that the location of last contact was around 30-40 miles north from the Egyptian coast.

Ahmed Abdel says – and this differs slightly from the numbers given by EgyptAir via Twitter earlier – there were 66 people on board:

• 56 passengers
• 3 security personnel
• 2 cockpit crew
• 5 cabin crew crew

There were “no recorded snags coming out of Cairo” or reported before leaving Charles de Gaulle for Cairo, he says.

The captain on flight has 6,000+ flying hours, including 2,000 on an A320.

Abdel says there was no special cargo on the flight and no notification had been made to the captain of dangerous goods on board.

A useful catch-up from Reuters:

National carrier EgyptAir said a plane carrying 69 passengers and crew on a flight from Paris to Cairo had gone missing on Thursday, disappearing from radar over the Mediterranean sea.

“An official source at EgyptAir stated that Flight MS804, which departed Paris at 23:09 (CEST), heading to Cairo has disappeared from radar,” the airline said on its official Twitter account.

Later Tweets by EgyptAir said the plane, which was travelling at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,280m), disappeared soon after entering Egyptian airspace. The aircraft was carrying 59 passengers and 10 crew.

According to flightradar24.com, the plane was an Airbus A320 and its last known position was above the Mediterranean sea.

An Airbus A321 operated by Russia’s Metrojet crashed in the Sinai in 31 October 2015, killing all 224 people on board. Russia and Western governments have said the plane was likely brought down by a bomb, and the Islamic State militant group said it had smuggled an explosive on board.

Reuters reported in January that an EgyptAir mechanic, whose cousin joined Islamic State in Syria, is suspected of planting the bomb, according to sources familiar with the matter.

In March, an EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked and forced to land in Cyprus by a man with what authorities said was a fake suicide belt. He was arrested after giving himself up.

France’s aviation authority could not immediately be reached for comment.

The late-night departure from Paris Charles de Gaulle was this plane’s fifth flight of the day, according to this tracker:

The fact that the plane was inside Egyptian airspace when contact was lost does not necessarily mean it is over land, as this graphic indicates:

Egypt’s civil aviation ministry has confirmed that search and rescue teams are looking for the missing plane.

It also confirms that contact with the plane was lost 10miles/16km within Egyptian airspace.

Egyptair was at the centre of another dramatic episode in March, when a plane flying between Alexandria and Cairo, Flight MS181, was hijacked and directed to land in Larnaca, Cyprus.

Initial speculation then that the hijacker was a terrorist was later downplayed, as it became apparent the man’s motives were connected to his estranged wife. He was arrested and all passengers and crew were released unharmed.

A clarification from Egyptair, which now says the plane “faded” from contact 10 miles (16km) inside Egyptian airspace:

Egyptair says the plane disappeared around 130km (80 miles) before entering Egyptian air space.

The flight was scheduled to leave Paris at 11.09pm local time – that’s around six hours ago – for a journey time of around 3 hours 45 minutes*.

It’s not clear at what time contact with the plane was lost. The confirmation from Egyptair was made public around half an hour ago.

[*Clarification: the journey time before contact was lost was around 3 hours 45 minutes; the total expected journey time between Paris and Cairo would have been longer.]

Information on the missing flight is still sketchy, but Flightradar24 says the plane in question is an Airbus A320-232.

Egyptair says 59 passengers and 10 crew are aboard.

Airline Egyptair has said one of its planes has disappeared from radar on a flight from Paris to Cairo.

Its official Twitter account said:

An official source said Egypt air that flight MS804, which took off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport to Cairo airport at 23.09 GMT Paris [with] 59 passengers on board and 10 crew members disappeared from the radar early in the morning.