EgyptAir flight MS804 that disappeared from radar on 19 May 2016 has crashed after one of the pilots lit a cigarette in the cockpit, an investigation revealed.
The Airbus A320 (registered SU-GCC) operated a regular flight between Paris CDG, France and Cairo, Egypt when air traffic control suddenly lost contact with aircraft.
A search-and-rescue operations was started in the eastern Mediterranean sea but all 66 souls on board died. Originally, the Egyptian authorities claimed that the aircraft was downed by terrorists.
But the official investigation now revealed that a cigarette in the vicinity of a leaking oxygen mask has caused the crash: investigators could hear a hissing sound indicating a leak in one of the supplementary cockpit oxygen supply.
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera revealed that an investigation also claimed that Egyptian pilots habitually smoked in the cockpit and the practice was not prohibited at the time of the crash in 2016.
Earlier reports found the plane had sent a series of warnings indicating that smoke had been detected on board through ACARS (aircraft sms system).
Recovered wreckage from the aircraft’s front section showed signs of high temperature damage and soot, the committee of investigators said.
Egyptair flight MS804 (CDG-CAI) missing above Mediterranean Sea
This doesn’t surprise men at all. In fact, when this plane went down and there was speculation a fire was involved, I immediately though is was from cigarette smoking. This is because I was on an EgyptAir flight in 2010 and was very surprised to find that the smoke detectors had been disabled in one of the restrooms and it had become a smoking room. This is the only airline I have ever flown on (and I have almost a million flight miles) where the no smoking regulations were blatantly violated in this way. However, I didn’t anticipate that it was a pilot smoking that caused the problem. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me either.