With a constant stream of news flooding our televisions and smartphones, and updates being sent out as soon as possible to get ahead of news-sharing competitors, it can be difficult to sort through what is real, what is speculation, and what is just rumor. A few days after the event, here is a look at what we know about EgyptAir MS804.
An Airbus A320 was scheduled to fly from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, France at 11:09pm (5:09pm EDT) on Wednesday, May 18th, 2016 and arrive in Cairo, Egypt at 3:15am early Thursday morning (9:15pm EDT, Wednesday night). On board the aircraft, which could seat up to 150, were 66 people: 56 passengers (including one child and two infants) and 10 crew members. 
At 2:41am (8:41pm EDT, Wednesday), a tweet was posted saying “the concerned authorities” had been contacted, and soon, search and rescue teams from the Egyptian Armed Forces were sent to the location where the plane lost contact with ATC (Twitter). As more details were available, the public learned that the plane “descended rapidly from cruising height, making a sharp left turn followed by a 360-degree turn to the right”,
but the pilot, who had more than six thousand flying hours, over two thousand of which were with an Airbus 320, did not make a distress call at any time (NBC News).
Already, people started asking questions as to possible causes of the plane’s disappearance. Early Thursday morning, French President François Hollande said he would not draw conclusions until more information was known, but that the disappearance was “perhaps terrorist” (The Guardian); Egyptian Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy stated that terrorism was “more likely” than a failure of the plane (The Independent). In America, while President Obama has not made any statements yet, the presumptive presidential nominees from both political parties have spoken out. Republican frontrunner Donald Trump tweeted that the events looked “like yet another terrorist attack” and Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton said it seemed to be an “act of terrorism” (Twitter, Huffington Post).
On Friday, search crews began to find “human remains, luggage, and passenger seats”, in a wide area south of the Greek island of Crete, near the last known location of MS804, which solidified the hypothesis that the plane had crashed and that, of the 66 passengers and crew, there were no survivors.
The answers, however, to the cause of the crash, will not be known until the full wreckage of the plane is found, and most importantly, its black box (though it is actually orange), which is a recording device used to investigate an accident on a plane. Unfortunately, the retrieval of the black box “may take time,” despite the fact that France, Greece, Italy, Cyrpus, and Britain are aiding the search, as the ocean in the search area is between eight and ten thousand feet deep, hiding a sea floor of underwater mountains (Chicago Tribune).
Most speculation — and speculation it will remain, for probably quite some time — centers around the thought of terrorist involvement. A combination of the known details leads to such an idea: the strange left turn and flying in a circle and the rapid drop in altitude, sudden regain of control, and another drop suggest a fight in the cockpit; the pilots of MS804 had, between them, over nine thousand hours of flight experience; the plane model, an Airbus A320, has “one of the industry’s best safety records” since its introduction in 1988 (Western Daily Press); the plane was not flying through bad weather at the time of its crash; and in the event that there was a malfunction of the plane and nothing sinister happened, the crew would have had time to make a distress call and attempt to fix the problem before all was lost, and no such call was made.
Although ISIS has not taken responsibility for the crash, which would be out of character if they were indeed behind it, evidence gathered thus far points to a bomb, and the terrorist group released a video threatening France earlier this week. According to Greg Barton, a prominent counter-terrorism researcher of Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, “If the radar image is suddenly not there and there’s a sudden deceleration…it does strongly suggest a bomb” (Australia News). ISIS’ video, entitled “The Footsteps of My Father”, features two French boys who say, “We kill you, as you killed our brothers,” use posters of François Hollande (and other world leaders) as target practice, and execute two prisoners (Australia News). The video also shows famous French landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower.
Even if MS804 was not brought down in an act of terror, it has instilled fear within those who have to fly in the near future. In Los Angeles, California, LAX has heightened security and improved their “counter-terrorism security measures” (Fox 11). Around the world, however, the feeling has been reinforced that no one is ever safe, and for the next few weeks and months, people will likely be even more worried than usual about flying.
In lieu of a proper conclusion in which I make a broad, over-arching point about all of this that makes you pause and think, “Wow,” for a moment or two, I want to express my deepest condolences for the families and friends who lost loved ones on May 19th. We often think of the people who are gone, but forget about the pain their losses leave behind on their parents, children, spouses, boyfriends and girlfriends, extended relatives, and friends. I cannot even begin to imagine what you are going through as I write this at my kitchen table, but my thoughts and prayers are with you as you grieve. God bless you.
