Terrorism likely behind missing EgyptAir jet: aviation minister

CAIRO - Egypt's aviation minister says terrorism is a likely cause behind the missing Egyptian passenger jet over the Mediterranean south of Greece rather than a technical failure.

The EgyptAir passenger jet, an Airbus A320, was travelling from Paris to Cairo at an altitude of 37,000 feet when it vanished from radar shortly after entering Egyptian airspace.

Carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two infants, and 10 crew members, the plane then plunged into the Mediterranean Sea. Thirty of the passengers were Egyptian, 15 of them French, and the remainder included people from Chad, Sudan and Algeria.

"The last contact we had with the plane control tower is 2:30 in the morning and after that the plane disappeared from radar at about 2:50 am," Egypt's Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy said at a news conference in Cairo.

Objects, including two life jackets as well as pieces of plastic, were found in the sea 370 km south of Crete after the plane went missing. But EgyptAir Vice President Ahmed Adel said the debris was not from Flight MS804, retracting an earlier statement.

Families of the passengers flocked to Cairo's main airport seeking answers. But from the start, the outlook was bleak.

There had been no warning from the crew that anything was wrong. Greek aviation officials said the plane made two sharp turns before plunging into the sea.

The plane crash has fueled concerns that terrorists have struck yet again. Both Egypt and France have been hit before.

"It's not far off to be a terrorist attack. The plane departed from Charles De Gaulle airport, and France is facing terrorism and was hit by huge terrorist attacks months ago when more than 200 people were killed. So why couldn't it be a terrorist or an employee in the airport placing a bomb on the flight with a timer and blowing up the airplane in the air after 2 hours of flight?" said Samy Abdel Rady, the deputy editor-in-chief of Watan Paper.

A defense 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 Karpathos.

Greece deployed aircraft and a frigate to search for the missing Airbus while Egypt said it would lead the investigation that France would participate in. Other countries that have offered to help include Britain and the United States.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo disappears from radar: airline

CAIRO, Egypt - An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo with 69 people on board has vanished from radar, the airline said on its verified Twitter feed Thursday.

A tweet on the airline's official account said flight MS804 left Paris at 23:09 pm local time (2109 GMT), "heading to Cairo (and) has disappeared from radar".

Further tweets in Arabic said contact was lost at 02:45 Cairo time (0045 GMT), when the plane was just inside Egyptian airspace and at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,000 metres).

There were 59 passengers and 10 crew aboard, according to the airline.

"EGYPTAIR has contacted the concerned authorities and bodies and inspection is underway through the rescue teams," another tweet in English said.

An EgyptAir flight from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked in March and forced to divert to Cyprus, where the "unstable" hijacker demanded to see his ex-wife.

He surrendered after a six-hour airport standoff, which ended peacefully.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Egyptair plane hijacked, forced to land in Cyprus

CAIRO/ATHENS - An Egyptair domestic flight from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked on Tuesday and landed in Cyprus, Egyptian officials said.

The pilot of the plane was threatened by a passenger strapped with explosives, Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry said.

The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation reported that 55 passengers were on board and a crew of seven. The hijacking occurred in Cyprus's flight information region and the airliner was diverted to Larnaca.

The plane was an Airbus 320, Egypt's aviation ministry said.

The ministry in a statement that pilot Omar al-Gammal had informed authorities that he was threatened by a passenger who possessed a suicide belt and forced him to land in Larnaca.

CYBC said the airplane was parked at an apron at Larnaca airport. The hijacker asked police to back away from the aircraft, it said.

Israel scrambled warplanes in its airspace as a precaution in response to the plane hijacking, according to an Israeli military source.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Egypt clashes rage into fourth day

CAIRO -- Protesters and police fought pitched battles on Sunday at security headquarters in Cairo as deadly clashes raged into a fourth day and the interior minister leapt to the defence of his reviled forces.

The fighting was sparked by the perceived failure of Egypt's military rulers and police to prevent deadly football-linked violence following a match in the northern city of Port Said on Wednesday that left 74 people dead.

Clashes have been fuelled by police action, including the use of tear gas and birdshot, against protesters, with the health ministry reporting at least 12 people killed in Cairo and Suez since the violence erupted on Thursday.

Hundreds of riot police Sunday blocked roads leading to the interior ministry headquarters in the centre of the capital, facing down youths throwing rocks and petrol bombs on several streets leading the ministry.

Police erected a concrete block wall on Mansur Street, which has become the nerve centre of the deadly clashes, while entrenching themselves behind coils of barbed wire on other roads.

"There is an insistence (by protesters) on storming the the interior ministry and implementing a plot," said Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, whose predecessor was sacked in a cabinet shuffle in November following similar clashes.

"Because of their insistence, we have been placed in the position of defending the ministry," he said.

Ibrahim said police did not want to harm any "revolutionaries" among the protesters, but were prepared to confront others "who want to ruin the country."

Earlier on Sunday, the police had moved on protesters' positions in the rock-strewn streets, firing birdshot and arresting medics at a field hospital, one doctor, Mustafa Nabil, told AFP. The medics were later released, he said.

The protesters denied they intended to storm the ministry, several hundred metres (yards) from Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the uprising that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak a year ago but left the military in charge.

"My heart burned at what happened in Port Said, and we all know that the police are responsible," said one protester, a high school student who gave his name as Ahmed Farag.

"We don't want to storm the ministry. We are protesting here because this is the police headquarters."

Marchers took to the streets nationwide on Friday to demand Egypt's ruling generals cede power immediately, amid charges the military was deliberately sowing chaos to justify its status at the top of the political ladder.

Many of the dead in the Port Said football riot were thought to have been Ahly Ultras -- supporters of Cairo's main club Al-Ahly -- set upon by partisans of the local Al-Masry side after the Cairo team lost 3-1.

The Ultras played a prominent role in the uprising that overthrew Mubarak, and commentators have fed speculation that pro-Mubarak forces were behind the massacre, or at least complicit in it.

Ibrahim responded to the allegation by denying in the press conference that Mubarak's ex-interior minister Habib al-Adly, on trial with the former president for the killings of protesters during the uprising, still had influence.

"Adly is in jail now and has no followers in the ministry," he said.

The military, headed by Mubarak's defence minister of two decades Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, has pledged to cede full powers to civilian rule when a president is elected by the end of June.

Its opponents believe it intends to hold on to power behind the scenes after a transfer to civilian rule.

Its increasingly unpopular rule has been challenged by several bloody protests, in which dozens of people were killed between October and December, amid an increase in lawlessness and an economic downturn.

Also Sunday, saboteurs blew up a pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula that supplies Israel with gas, the 12th such attack in a year. Security officials said gunmen planted explosives under the pipeline close to the northern town of El-Arish.

The pipeline attack came the day after an Islamist leader from the area, Mohammed Eid al-Taihi, died in a prison cell in Cairo.

Interior ministry officials said he died from a "drop in blood circulation" and forensic doctors detected no signs of torture.

Taihi was suspected of leading a militant Islamist group responsible for previous pipeline explosions and attacks on police stations in Sinai.

source: interaksyon.com