Egypt dismisses reports that blast caused plane crash

By Omar Azzam

CAIRO

Hisham Abdel-Hamid, head of Egypt’s forensic authority, has dismissed media reports suggesting that last week’s crash of EgyptAir flight MS804 might have been caused by an explosion.

"Everything that’s been published in this regard has no basis in fact; they are mere assumptions," Abdel-Hamid said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Earlier the same day, some western media outlets quoted Egyptian forensic officials who suggested the plane might have gone down as the result of an explosion based on the fact that some of the bodies that have since been recovered were not found intact.

Last Thursday, EgyptAir flight MS804 -- flying from Paris to Cairo with 66 people on board -- disappeared shortly after entering Egyptian airspace.

On Friday morning, Egyptian state television announced that the army had found the wreckage of the plane in the eastern Mediterranean.

According to the airline, 30 Egyptians and 15 French - along with two Iraqis, one Briton, one Belgian, one Portuguese, one Algerian, one Chadian, one Canadian, one Sudanese, one Kuwaiti and one Saudi national -- had been aboard the ill-fated aircraft.

Both the French and Egyptian authorities have since launched investigations to determine the cause of the crash, which remains unknown until now.