Egyptian military scouring the Mediterranean Sea today found the wreckage of the crashed EgyptAir aircraft, a day after the ill-fated plane en route to Cairo from Paris went down with 66 people on board, with authorities hinting at a terror angle to the deadly incident.

“Egyptian aircraft and navy vessels have found personal belongings of passengers and parts of the wreckage 290 km north of Alexandria,” Brigadier General Mohamed Samir said on his Facebook page.

The military searchers had intensified their search for the missing EgyptAir Flight MS804 after earlier reports that its wreckage had been found turned out to be false.

The discovery of the wreckage near the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria comes as the navy continues to sweep the area looking for the plane’s black box and bodies.

There were no signs of survivors after the Airbus A320 “swerved and then plunged” into the Mediterranean. The plane, on its fifth journey of the day, was travelling at 37,000 feet when it disappeared from radar. It had made a stop in Tunisia before flying to Paris.

Soon after the wreckage was found, the Egyptian presidency expressed its “deep sadness and extreme regret” over the deaths of the people on board the jet, in the first official recognition of the tragic crash of the missing plane.

The plane lost contact with radar early yesterday above the Mediterranean Sea about 280 km from the Egyptian seacoast at 02:30am (local time) as the flight was expected to arrive at Cairo airport at 03:15 am (local time).

The plane was carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew: two cockpit crew, five cabin crew and three security personnel.

EgyptAir said two babies and one child were on board.

Among the passengers were 30 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis, and one person each from the UK, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria and Canada.

The Egyptian navy, air force and army were searching the sea to the north of Egypt’s coast, with French, Greek, British and US support.

The plane made “sudden swerves” before dropping off radar over the Mediterranean, Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said. It made a 90-degree turn left, and then dropped from 37,000 feet to 15,000 feet before swerving 360 degrees right.

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Published on May 20, 2016