French ship joins hunt for black boxes of EgyptAir airliner

The French navy said that one of its ships has joined the search for the wreckage of EgyptAir Flight MS804 on Monday, focusing especially on the hunt for its flight recorders, as questions remain over what caused the Airbus 320 to crash over the Mediterranean, killing all 66 on board.

Five days after the plane crashed, human remains of the victims arrived at a morgue in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, where forensic experts were to carry out DNA tests, according to the head of EgyptAir, Safwat Masalam.

Security officials at the Cairo morgue said family members had arrived at the building to give DNA samples to match with the remains, which included those of a child.

Questions remain over what caused the crash and what happened to the doomed jet in the final minutes before it disappeared off radar on Thursday.

Egyptian authorities said they believe terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure, and some experts have said the erratic flight suggests a bomb blast or a struggle in the cockpit. But so far no hard evidence has emerged.

A 2013 report said the same plane made an emergency landing in Cairo that year, shortly after taking off on its way to Istanbul after one of the engines "overheated". Aviation experts have said that overheating is uncommon yet is highly unlikely to eventually cause a crash.

Ehab Azmy, head of Egypt's state-run provider of air navigation services, said that "the plane did not swerve or lose altitude before it disappeared off radar", challenging an earlier account by Greece.

Disputes

Azmy, head of the National Air Navigation Services Company, said that in the minutes before the plane disappeared it was flying at its normal altitude of 11,300 meters, according to the radar reading. "That fact degrades what the Greeks are saying about the aircraft suddenly losing altitude before it vanished from radar," he added.

Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos has said the plane swerved and dropped to 3,000 meters before it fell off radar.