Smoke was detected in multiple places on EgyptAir flight 804 moments before it plummeted into the Mediterranean, but the cause of the crash that killed all 66 on board remains unclear, the French air accident investigation agency said on Saturday.
Agency spokesman Sebastien Barthe told The Associated Press in Paris that the plane’s automatic detection system sent messages indicating smoke a few minutes before the plane disappeared from radar while flying over the east Mediterranean early on Thursday morning.
The messages, he explained, “generally mean the start of a fire,” but he added: “We are drawing no conclusions from this. Everything else is pure conjecture.”
An aviation industry publication has earlier reported that sensors detected smoke in a lavatory, suggesting a fire on-board before the aircraft went down.
The publication cited information transmitted through the plane’s Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS, which transmits data from the plane to the ground in the form of a series of messages. Those messages showed that smoke was detected in the plane’s lavatory near the cockpit, according to the report.
David Learmount, a widely respected aviation expert and editor of the authoritative Flightglobal magazine, said the readings reported by the Aviation Herald suggested a quick-spreading fire.