EgyptAir Flight MS804 missing: Passenger plane disappears from radar over Mediterranean Sea

There were believed to be 56 passengers on board - including a British national

An EgyptAir plane from Paris to Cairo with 66 people on board has gone missing over the Mediterranean Sea.

The Airbus A320, which was carrying 56 passengers, seven crew and three members of security staff, was 10 miles into Egyptian airspace when it vanished, and is believed to have crashed into the sea.

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Among the passengers are believed to be a child and two babies. EgyptAir said a Briton, 30 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis, a Belgian, Kuwaiti, Saudi, Sudanese, Chadian, Algerian, Portuguese and Canadian were on the passenger list.

Airline officials confirmed a major search and rescue operation is now taking place 30 or 40 miles off the Egyptian coast.

"An official source at EgyptAir stated that Flight MS804, which departed Paris at 23:09 (CEST), heading to Cairo has disappeared from radar," the airline said on its official Twitter account.

EgyptAir said the plane, which was travelling at an altitude of 37,000ft, disappeared soon after entering Egyptian airspace.

The flight path of EgyptAir flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo is seen on a flight tracking screen (Reuters)

The incident is the latest setback for the industry in Egypt.

Last October, an Airbus A321 operated by Russia’s Metrojet crashed in the Sinai killing all 224 people on board. Russia and Western governments have said the plane was likely brought down by a bomb, and the Isis militant group said it had smuggled an explosive device on board.

Police take up position at terminal 1 at Charles de Gaulle airport, after an Egyptair flight disappeared from radar during its flight from Paris to Cairo (Reuters)

In March, an EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked and forced to land in Cyprus by a man with what authorities said was a fake suicide belt.

The hijacker handed himself in after several hours and no one was hurt in the incident. The belt was later revealed to have contained mobile phones and no explosives.

The last fatal incident involving an EgyptAir aircraft was in May 2002, when a Boeing 737 crashed into a hill while on approach to Tunis–Carthage International Airport, killing 14 people.

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