EgyptAir Flight MS804 Debris Found Near Greek Island Of Karpathos [LIVE]

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It’s being reported that a Greek military frigate, that was searching for the EgyptAir flight MS804 that disappeared over the southern Mediterranean on its way from Paris to Cairo early Thursday, has radioed claiming to have found wreckage 370 km south of the Greek island Crete.

Earlier, transponder signals were detected in this area of the sea.

Egypt, France and Greece all deployed planes and ships to the area earlier today. The lack of a distress call from the plane has many speculating that a bombing may have occurred though there is nothing more solid than that to make that speculation.

MORE UPDATES about EgyptAir Flight MS804

In the time from when I started writing this, The Telegraph is now reporting that bodies have also been found in the area.

The Telegraph’s Raf Sanchez in Cairo reports that Egypt’s aviation minister, Sherif Fathy, told him that “If you analyze the situation properly, the possibility of having a terror attack is higher than the possibility of having a technical fault.”

66 people were on board EgyptAir flight MS804 when it went down including three security guards.

We’re not excluding the possibility that this was a terrorist attack, however we don’t want to base our statements on theories – we need facts,” he told a press conference in Cairo.

The flight began in Cairo, flew to Tunisia and back to Cairo before flying to Paris and picking more passengers and was on its way back to Cairo when it disappeared from radar at 2:45 AM just before entering Egyptian airspace.

We will update this story when more is made available.

It’s being reported that the plane made some drastic maneuvers at 37,000 before disappearing before rapidly descending and disappearing.

“It turned 90 degrees left and then a 360-degree turn toward the right, dropping from 38,000 to 15,000 feet and then it was lost at about 10,000 feet,” said Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos.

5:41 EDT: In another update which I promised would not be coming Adel, has turned 180 degrees on earlier statements to the press.

“We stand corrected on finding the wreckage because what we identified is not a part of our plane. So the search and rescue is still going on,” Adel told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

1:51 EDT: While we will surely have more to report on the likely downing of EgyptAir MS804, this will be the last update.

EgyptAir Vice Chairman Ahmed Adel has told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the wreckage of the flight has been found about 150 miles off the coast of Egypt and that the search and rescue operation is now “turning into a search and recovery” operation.

Unnamed U.S. officials are also telling CNN that early signs point to a bomb exploding on the flight but stopped short of calling it a smoking gun.

10:57 EDT:  While this is simply speculation, numerous experts are suggesting that the lack of communication from the plane suggest a catastrophic event especially given the fact that the plane was in the “easiest” part of the flight while simply cruising at 37,000 where there are certainly no mountains and lots of time to respond to an engine failure or fire. No distress call from that altitude would suggest that something physically happened to the pilots that kept them from sending any communications to air traffic controllers.

Internet speculation points more and more to a bomb on board or the possibility of a ground-fired missile striking the aircraft though that’s quite the altitude and would rule out a number of missiles.

No man carried surface-to-air missile could strike a plane flying at that altitude and that’s why a Stinger missile or something similar would generally target an aircraft on take off or during a landing.

Nean-Paul Troadec, the former chief of France’s air accident investigation unit, suggests that the lack of communication suggests a “brutal event.”

He told Europe 1 radio station in Paris: “A technical problem, a fire or a failed motor do not cause an instant accident, and the team has time to react.”

“The team said nothing, they did not react, so it was very probably a brutal event and we can certainly think about an attack,” he added.

Julian Bray, another air travel expert, concurred and said no communication could mean the airliner suffered a “catastrophic failure” as a result of an explosion

He said: “It has to be a catastrophic failure because everything went dead and they wouldn’t have had time to get a message out.”

“It’s gone into the deepest part of the Mediterranean.”

Presidential hopeful and presumptive Republican Party nominee, Donald Trump, while not an expert quickly took to Twitter to condemn “yet another terrorist attack.” Trump then asked on Twitter “when will we get tough, smart and vigilant? Great hate and sickness!”

But that’s just what Trump does, isn’t it and it’s hardly a surprise that he would use this incident (tragedy) for his own political gain.

10:11 EDT: EgyptAir said the flight was carrying 30 Egyptians along with citizens from 11 other countries — including Canada, France, the U.K., Belgium and Iraq.

Airbus said the plane  was made in 2003 and delivered to Egyptair in 2008, adding that the aircraft had accumulated around 48,000 flight hours.

“At this time no further factual information is available,” the company added in a statement. “Our concerns go to all those affected.”

10:07 EDT: Residents of Greek island claim they saw ball of fire in the sky around the time MS804 disappeared – VIDEO:

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