Egyptians look at posters of the 66 victims of the EgyptAir MS804 flight that crashed
Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry says traces of explosives have been found on some of the victims of an EgyptAir flight from Paris that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea in May.
A ministry statement issued Thursday says a criminal investigation will now begin into the crash of Flight 804, which killed all 66 people on board.
The cause of the crash remains unknown.
French investigators have said that they had found trace levels of the explosive material TNT on the plane’s debris but were prevented from further examining it, according to a report in the Paris daily Le Figaro. Egyptian officials, however, had denied that claim.
Audio from the flight recorder of the crashed aircraft mentions a fire on board the plane in its final moments and an earlier analysis of the plane’s flight data recorder showed there had been smoke in the lavatory and avionics bay.
No one has claimed to have attacked the plane. The crash came seven months after a Russian airliner crashed in the Sinai Peninsula shortly after taking off from an Egyptian Red Sea resort, killing all 226 people on board.
The local affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group said it had downed the Russian plane with an explosive device planted on board. Russia said the aircraft was likely downed by explosives.
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