CAIRO // A search ship has spotted and obtained images of the wreckage of the EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean last month killing all 66 people on board.
The Egyptian committee investigating the disatster said the John Lethbridge, a survey vessel was contracted by the government to search for the plane debris and flight data recorders, "had identified several main locations of the wreckage".
The next step will be drawing a map showing the wreckage location, the committee said late on Wednesday.
The 75-metre-long survey vessel is equipped with sonar and other equipment capable of detecting wreckage at depths up to 1,830 metres.
The EgyptAir Airbus A320 had been cruising normally in clear skies on an overnight flight from Paris to Cairo on May 19. Radar showed that the aircraft turned 90 degrees left, then a full 360 degrees to the right, plummeting from 11,582m to 4,572m before disappearing at about 3,048m.
Leaked flight data indicated a sensor detected smoke in a lavatory and a fault in two of the plane’s cockpit windows in the final moments of the flight.
The cause of the crash still has not been determined. Ships and planes from Egypt, Greece, France, the United States and other nations have been searching the Mediterranean Sea north of the Egyptian port of Alexandria for the jet’s voice and flight data recorders, as well as more bodies and parts of the aircraft.
Since the crash began, only small pieces of wreckage and human remains have been recovered in a search that has been narrowed down to five-kilometre area of the Mediterranean.
Egypt’s civil aviation minister Sherif Fathi has said he believes terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure or some other catastrophic event. But no hard evidence has emerged on the cause, and no militant group has claimed to have downed the jet.
Wednesday's announcement came nearly two weeks after the French ship Laplace detected black box signals from the missing plane.
Locator pings emitted by flight data and cockpit voice recorders can be picked up from deep underwater. The Laplace is equipped with three detectors designed to pick up those signals, which in the case of the EgyptAir plane are believed to be from a depth of about 3,000m.
Ten days later, Egyptian investigators said that time was running out in the search for the black boxes. They said on Sunday that barely two weeks remained before the batteries of the flight recorders expired and they stopped emitting signals.
If retrieved, the boxes could reveal whether a mechanical fault, a hijacking or a bomb caused the disaster. The voice recorder should contain a record of the last 30 minutes in the cockpit, and is equipped to detect even loud breathing. The data recorder would contain technical information on the engines, wings and cabin pressure. Investigators hope the black boxes will offer clues as to why there was no distress call.
Finding them without the signals is possible but more difficult.
Last October, a Russian airliner crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula shortly after taking off from the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board. A local affiliate of the ISIL group claimed responsibility for downing the aircraft just hours after the crash. In November, Russia said an explosive device brought down the aircraft.
The two disasters have unsettled authorities at the Cairo airport, where false alarms or bomb threats have caused lengthy delays to flights and at least one cancellation last week.
Security has also been considerably tightened at Egypt’s 20-odd airports since the Russian plane crash, with passengers now subjected to roughly the same security measures in force at major international airports.
* Associated Press