The U.S says EgyptAir Flight 804 that went missing with 66 people on board on Thursday may have been downed by a bomb previously placed in the plane.
The plane was said to be flying en route Paris to Cairo.
Michael McCaul, U.S. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman, on Friday in Washington said though it would remain unclear what had happened until the plane’s black boxes were recovered.
He said there were early clues pointing to a possible terrorist attack.
“That plane, from what I understand was in Cairo, Tunis and Paris, so it could have possibly been an inside job at the Paris airport or a bomb could have been placed on the plane prior to this.
“There wasn’t a lot of radio traffic, so it may have been something a lot more sudden which would indicate an explosion,” he said.
EgyptAir officials said the Airbus A320 vanished 10 miles (16 km) after it entered Egyptian airspace at 2:45 a.m. Cairo local time (0045 GMT) on Thursday.
There were 66 people aboard, including 30 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis and one each from Algeria, Belgium, Portugal, Britain, Canada, Chad, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
Meanwhile, Egyptian Government said wreckage and passengers’ belongings from the missing plane have been found by Egyptian aircraft and ships, 290 kilometres north of the coastal city of Alexandria.
In an apparent confirmation of the plane crash, the office of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi offered deep condolences to the victims’ family members.
The presidency added that investigations were ongoing to determine the causes of the regrettable accident.
Three French aviation accident investigators and an Airbus technical expert arrived in Cairo to join an Egypt-led probe into the disappearance and search operations to locate the jet’s two black boxes were underway.
“The participation of the French investigators in the probe is because 15 of the 56 passengers who were on board were French citizens.
“Also, France is the headquarters of the plane manufacturer,’’ an official at Cairo airport, said on condition of anonymity.
Ships and planes from France, Greece and Egypt have been scouring the area where the Egyptair flight MS804 is thought to have come down, about 280 kilometres from the Egyptian mainland.
Greece’s weather service said search operations could be complicated by heavy rainfall and strong winds moving into the eastern Mediterranean.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras vowed to cooperate closely with Egypt to find the plane and he offered condolences and support to al-Sissi during a phone call.
Multiple reports of debris in the hours after the apparent crash were found not to have been from the passenger jet, which was carrying 56 passengers, seven crew members and three security officers.
The Australian Government said one passenger identified as British was confirmed to be a dual Australian-British national.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told newsmen that there were absolutely no clues to indicate the reason for the plane’s disappearance, adding that he would meet with victims’ families this weekend in Paris.
The pilots did not make contact when they left Greek airspace as is customary, Egypt’s aviation authority said.
The jet was flying at a height of 37,000 feet (11,300 metres) when it disappeared about 45 minutes before its expected landing in Cairo.
Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy said the likelihood that it was the victim of a terrorist attack was far higher than the likelihood that the plane developed a technical failure.
The crash came in the wake of two other incidents involving Egyptian aviation.
In March, an Egyptian man used a fake explosive belt made of mobile phone covers and cables to force an Egyptair flight to land in Cyprus.
In October 2015, a Russian passenger jet broke up in mid-air shortly after take-off from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board.
Russian authorities said that the incident was caused by a bomb.
The Islamic State extremist group, which operates in Sinai, claimed responsibility and published a photograph of a soft drink can which it said had been filled with explosives and smuggled onto the flight.
