The 2016 crash of EgyptAir flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo, which Egyptian authorities initially described as an act of terrorism, was caused by a pilot smoking a cigarette, an investigation has found.
The jet disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea between Crete and the coast of northern Egypt on May 19, 2016, carrying 66 passengers and crew, all of whom were killed. It took one month to locate the wreckage.
Egyptian investigators initially said they had found traces of explosives in the remains of victims of the flight. Cairo’s prosecutor general ordered an urgent state security investigation, but its findings were never made public.
A confidential 134-page investigation document compiled by French experts and sent to the Paris Court of Appeal now attributes the cause of the crash to the pilots’ cigarette smoking.
According to the report, obtained by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, the co-pilot’s oxygen mask was left in “emergency” mode instead of “normal” by a maintenance engineer.
The cigarette caused the oxygen to combust, provoking a spark that led to a fire.
Credit: Aljazeera
