An EgyptAir Airbus en route from Paris, France, to Cairo, Egypt, has gone missing.
The jetliner fell off of Greek radar early in the morning of Thursday, May 19, and crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. There were 56 passengers on board and 10 crew members.
There are no signs of survivors, and officials predict all on board perished.
The plane was said to have swerved violently before losing contact with radar. It abruptly made a 90-degree left-hand turn, then spun a full 360 degrees before plummeting from 38,000 to 15,000 feet.
It was lost at 10,000 feet.
Experts believe the airbus’s erratic course could lead to many possibilities including mechanical failure, but many believe this disappearance is tied to terrorism.
If so, this terrorist attack would be the second deadly attack on Egyptian aviation in seven months.
The Egyptian military has found debris from the believed crash site about 180 miles away from the Egyptian city of Alexandria. It included luggage, plane seats, and human remains.
Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has deployed a submarine to the supposed crash site in hopes of finding the plane’s black boxes.
These black boxes hold the plane’s data and voice recorders, and they can give security officials an idea of what happened during the plane’s last tragic moments.
Alabama Public Radio reports Fattah el-Sissi’s first public remarks since the crash. He stated, “Until now, all of the scenarios are possible.It is very, very important to us that we know all the circumstances that caused this plane to go down.”
The problem, however, is that the waters in the search area of the Mediterranean could be about 9,800 feet deep. Voice and data recorders can only be detected around 9,800 feet below sea level.
At the time of publication, the submarine has not found any answers.
Terrorism has been an active threat worldwide for several decades, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Between the years 1975 and 2003, terrorism killed 13,971 people at an annual rate of one in every 12.5 million people.
