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Family members of passengers who were flying aboard an EgyptAir plane that vanished from radar en route from Paris to Cairo overnight gather at Cairo airport.
AMONG passengers on missing EgyptAir flight 804 was a student training at a French military school who was heading to his family home in Chad to mourn the death of his mother.
The protocol officer for Chad’s embassy in Paris, Muhammed Allamine, said the man “had just lost his mother†and “was going to give condolences to his family.†Mr Allamine said the man, who wasn’t identified, was a student at France’s prestigious Saint-Cyr army academy.
Another passenger on the flight was an Egyptian man returning home after medical treatment in France, according to two devastated friends who turned up at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport.
“It breaks my heart,†said one friend, Madji Samaan.
One British citizen was among the passengers and has been named locally as 41-year-old Richard Osman from Carmarthenshire, Wales, according to the South Wales Evening Post.
Mr Osman, a geologist, was believed to be flying to work for a gold mining company in Egypt when the plane vanished. He had a two-year-old daughter and worked for exploration and research companies which involved extensive international travel, Metro UK reports.
Tributes to Mr Osman started surfacing online after a tweet claiming to show the flight’s passenger list, including his name, was circulated on social media.
The Foreign Office tweeted: “We are in contact with the family of a British national believed to have been on boardâ€.
Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry has also identified a Kuwaiti feared dead in the EgyptAir plane crash in the Mediterranean Sea.
A ministry statement delivered on Thursday afternoon by the state-run Kuwait News Agency named the missing passenger as Abdulmohsen al-Muteiri. It offered no other details about al-Muteiri.
The statement quoted Sami al-Hamad, an assistant foreign minister for consular affairs, as saying Kuwait had been in touch with Egyptian authorities over the crash.
The EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo with 66 passengers and crew on board crashed Thursday morning in the Mediterranean Sea off the Greek island of Crete.
Egypt's Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy speaks during a press conference at the Ministry of Civil Aviation at Cairo's airport. He said he could not rule out either terrorism or a technical problem.Source:AFP
A Greek frigate searching for the missing plane has found two large plastic floating objects 370 kilometres south of Crete, Greek defence sources said.
The two objects appeared to be pieces of plastic in white and red which were spotted close to an area where a transponder signal was emitted earlier.
Greek broadcaster ERT also said two orange objects were found in a similar area within Egyptian air traffic control.
“There have been finds southeast of Crete, inside the Cairo flight information area,†Greek army general staff spokesman Vassilis Beletsiotis told AFP.
Ship captain Tarek Wahba, who works for Maersk Egypt has also posted a series of images from the large-scale search on Facebook. While they are unable to be independently verified, the pictures purport to show “life jackets and debris†from the plane.
French President Francois Hollande confirmed the plane crashed and said terror could not be ruled out.
“The information we have gathered — ministers, members of government and, of course, the Egyptian authorities — confirm, sadly, that it has crashed. It is lost,†the French leader said following an emergency meeting on Thursday.
“No hypothesis is ruled out.â€
Egypt’s aviation minister Sherif Fathy said terror is more likely to be the cause that a technical problem with the plane.
“The possibility of having a different action on-board, of having a terror attack, it is higher than the possibility of having a technical,†he said.
Passengers arriving for the 3.45pm EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo faced heavy grey curtains drawn over the departure hall and journalists waiting outside. Most of those interviewed stayed stoic, saying it didn’t make sense to cancel their plane trip out of fear — even if many acknowledged being a little rattled.
- With AP
Families of passengers who were flying aboard EgyptAir Flight 804 wait outside a services hall at Cairo airport.Source:AFP