EgyptAir A320: Plane wreckage found

A research vessel has found what it believes to be wreckage from the doomed EgyptAir flight 804 which disappeared over the Mediterranean last month.

The Airbus A320 vanished on May 19 with 66 people on board while en route between Paris to Cairo.

The deep ocean search vessel John Lethbridge has identified several main locations, according to the Egyptian Investigation Committee.

Search boats working against the clock to retrieve the black boxes have been given fresh impetus. The flight data recorders from the jet are expected to stop emitting signals in just over a week.

The committee said in a statement that a vessel contracted by the Egyptian Government to join the search efforts for the data recorders and the wreckage of the doomed A320 "had identified several main locations of the wreckage, accordingly the first images of the wreckage were provided to the investigation committee".

Searchers have also found pieces of the missing jet's cabin and fuselage have been found at "several sites".

Based on the wreckage locations; The search team and investigators onboard of the vessel will draw a map for the wreckage distribution spots, it added

The plane disappeared from radar en route to Cairo from Paris. No group has claimed responsibility for an attack.

The search has concentrated on an area between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast.

Air crash investigators are determined to recover the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder to help determine what happened to the doomed jet. So far, only small pieces of wreckage and some human remains have been recovered.

A French vessel, Laplace, located signals from the ocean bed which could come from the black boxes.

The John Lethbridge has a special side scan sonar that can provide digital images of the seabed at depths up to 1830m and is equipped with a submersible robot.

The missing jet is believed to be lying in water at the very edge of the robot's capabilities.

The radar showed that the doomed aircraft turned 90 degrees left, then a full 360 degrees to the right, plummeting from 11,582m to 4572m before disappearing at about 3048m.

While speculation initially centred on a terror attack, a technical fault has also not been ruled out, with automated messages sent by the plane shortly before its demise indicating smoke in the cabin and a fault in the flight control unit.

The crash took place seven months after the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula in October that killed all 224 people on board.

Isis (Islamic State) claimed responsibility for that attack. There has been no such claim over the EgyptAir crash

- Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, AP