Egyptian army finds human remains of crashed plane passengers

Pilots of an Egyptian military plane take part in a search operation for the EgyptAir plane that disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea in this still image taken from video May 19, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

CAIRO  -- Egyptian Armed Forces have found human remains and more wreckage of the crashed EgyptAir flight, Egypt's ministry of civil aviation said on Friday.

In a press statement, the ministry said besides human remains, the army has found the plane's seats and passengers' belongings.

The search is still going on, the statement said.

Earlier on Friday, the military has found debris from the crashed EgyptAir plane 290 km north of the coastal city of Alexandria.

The Airbus A320, en route from Paris to Cairo, disappeared from radar screens on Thursday at 2:45 am Cairo local time (0045 GMT) with 66 people aboard, including 30 Egyptians and 15 French.

The plane was flying at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,280 meters) when losing contact with the radar, an official source in the airline said.

Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said that the plane had made abrupt swerves and lost altitude within Egyptian airspace.

The flight MS804 entered the Greek airspace at 02:24 am local time (2324 GMT, May 18), according to an earlier press statement.

During the last contact of the plane's pilot with Greek air traffic controllers at 02:48 am local time while the Airbus was flying over the Greek island of Kos no problems were reported.

The aircraft exited the Greek airspace, before suddenly disappearing from radar screens within Egyptian airspace at 03:29 am according to the Greek authorities.

Athens attempted to contact the plane at 03:27 am for the typical transfer of communication to Egyptian air traffic controllers, but there was no response, according to the official announcement.

The Greek Civil Aviation Authority, as well as Greece's Defense Ministry, have not confirmed local media reports that the captain of a passenger vessel reported a flash in the sky about 130 nautical miles off the Greek island of Karpathos, Greek national news agency ANA-MPA stressed.