Or some kind of bomb on a person ignited in the toilet?

Seems they are being cautious until there are numerous or official announcement.

CBS still reporting it http://www.cbsnews.com/news/egyptair...terranean-sea/

That area of Med is basically the Alps under water. Greek Islands basically mountain peaks. It's not the easiest place to recover from.

American news gets stuff from govt/security services on the qt. They leak like a sieve.

That's not like Sky at all!

The crash site looks to be anything from approx 2000m(6,500ft) up to 4000m(13,000ft) deep.

To give it some sort of context the Titanic is located at a depth of 3800m(12,500 feet).

Regarding the plane movements I read an article online earlier that explained the left and right movements are the same procedure as a pilot would do when attempting to ditch the plane or descend in an emergency.

They do partner with CBS, so I'm surprised they haven't mentioned, but like you say - not like Sky.

With it being the weekend now both BBC News and Sky News wind down.

But the Med in late spring and summer is a much more friendly environment than the deep Atlantic and is much closer to available land and sea facilities. Not easy then, but an order of magnitude less difficult than where Titanic and also MH 370 went down, not to mention better information on location.

The potential terrorism aspect will also lead to a much greater effort being expended to try and find it quickly.

Oh it's easier to find than NH370 as they know where it went down and it isn't in the most inhospitable ocean on the planet. I was just pointing out that even though Mediterranean Sea is self contained and gentle in terms of movement that actually the sea floor is very mountainous in that area.

The Egyptian authorities are now denying that the black boxes have been located, totally contradicting their earlier statement;…I guess that begs the question of what ‘located’ actually means?

Detecting the underwater sonic ‘pings’ from the black boxes is one thing,…pin-pointing the exact location is another. It’s not an easy task,… especially when there are many underwater obstacles to distort the ‘ping’ sound patterns. They will emit sonic pings for about 30 days.

When the black boxes’ exact locations are discovered then it may not be a straightforward operation to bring them to the surface ;...it will certainly need specialist equipment and very skilled personnel to raise them.

The black boxes may be not be easily accessible;…they could be lodged deep in a chasm or even still trapped in the wreckage of the plane.

The potential difficulties of this recovery operation are myriad, given the depth of water and the possible unforgiving terrain;

…of course it may all go swimmingly,…I really hope so.

I think you are right. They've probably picked up pings so know where to search but as far actually finding and recovering the boxes that is a far more complex job. There is likely sound distortion at those depths with it bouncing off the terrain so will need to deploy multiple vessels to pinpoint exactly where they are. All doable and they won't know how hard it is until they start the salvage operation.

I know that black box is just a name, they aren't really black but, is there a reason they aren't made to float? Would make recovering simpler at sea and make no difference if the crash was on land.

Probably to do with a trade off to find something that is pretty much indestructable and light enough to be fitted to the tail and not disrupt the performance. Any lighter and the material might not be tough enough. If they included some kind of trigger to fire out a flotation device then that could also misfire and cause it's own problems in the air. I'm sure there are ways of doing it though, but then these days you'd also run the risk of someone nicking it off the water I suppose. Why they don't have a small, but strong GPS chip in them that transmits for 30 days or so is a little bit more confusing as that'd enable them to be located very quickly. The current design just allows them keep telling searchers where the box is, but only if they are close enough to pick up the signal anyway. Even then it's like a needle in a hay stack trying to narrow down the source of the ping. Ok, on the seabed it may not make a difference as GPS signals wouldn't penetrate that deep anyway, but planes can be lost over land too and if at least one little bit of the wreckage can generate an accurate locating ping continuously even after the crash has happened then it would speed up locating and recovery.

"If" this turns out to be an onboard bomb, meaning it was able to get through Paris security without any detection whatsoever, it will surely change European airport security forever.

Unless it was put on board in one of the airports it had previously been at - I have asked a few times and not had an answer but does anyone know what checks there are inbetween flights?

OT: Whatever the cause I should imagine this latest downing will have a further detrimental effect on tourism and for those who rely on that income.

" ... that the number of tourists in Egypt is declining. By 2013, it had fallen by one-third to under 10 million a year, and has undoubtedly slumped further since then.

And last year's revenue from tourism was just under half the 2010 figure, at $6.1bn (£4.2bn).

International tour operators can weather that kind of collapse in demand: they simply promote alternative destinations perceived as safer.

As Mr Bugsgang says, package holidaymakers have been switching their allegiance to countries such as Spain, which has seen a "huge upsurge" in summer bookings this year, and Bulgaria.

But it's terrible news for all the ordinary Egyptians who rely on foreign visitors for their livelihood: hotel workers, tourist guides, taxi drivers and stallholders in the local souks and bazaars. " http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36340581

Re the black box: Why don't they stream the data back live which is perfectly possible technically, why do we have this saga about them having to find the boxes (which I believe are actually orange)

It depends on the airport and airline. Any carrier I've worked with in the UK has had a "secure clean" done which basically means every overhead bin, seat pocket, cupboard, underseat area etc is checked by the cleaning team (who would be searched as they entered and exited the plane) and again by the cabin crew both in and out (if there is a crew change between flights). The cargo and baggage hold areas would get a similar check too. I'm not sure how much of it is industry standard, but I'd be surprised if such checks were not done in Paris and at the home base of Cairo, even more surprised if the plane had been to these places on previous days meaning a full check would surely have been done each night at least or morning.

The idea that it could have been flying around with an explosive device on board for several days unnoticed is frightening. Personally I doubt this is the case as it raises too many whatifs. For example, was it detonated by someone on board who knew it had been placed there previously or on a random timer? Presumably the person who put it on board would have been on the inside and known where the plane was going as aircraft rotations are often planned 2 or 3 days in advance, but then again delays happen and planes can obviously be swapped around for any reason. So there would be no gaurantee of the person who set it off of even being on the same plane, unless a network or bombers booked on to several flights and the one who was "lucky" was the one in Paris. That is quite IS like, but then they have not said a thing about this crash, which is not like them.

If this was a previously placed device then it could have been timed to go off much earlier in the flight, the fact it went off so close to landing is a bit strange. Just a few minutes later and the plane would have been below 10,000 feet anyway and unpressurised so maybe wouldn't have suffered so much, or it could have happened on the ground, where there are fueling trucks and pipelines and other planes so could have caused even more damage. It just doesn't seem likely this is what has happened.

From the looks of things I would maybe suggest some undisclosed or improperly packed dangerous cargo (or something inside a bag) was aboard which has caught on fire and out of control. The smoke under the avionics panel would suggest coming from the forward holds and filling the cabin suggests there was no decompression as if a bomb went off then there would be no smoke as it'd all be sucked out. The flames could have rendered the controls useless. This could be another case simmilar to ValuJet 592 or Swissair 111 where inflight entertainment cables caught fire and slowly burned away before causing a catastropihc fire and crash. The aircraft certainly seems to have acted similar to Swissair 111 anyway. If this is the case then cargo preparation needs to be looked at at CDG as it would mean a serious lack of awareness.

Everyone who comes in to contact with baggage, from a check in agent to a baggage loader to the person who drives the forklift truck has to undertake intensive dangerous goods training set by IATA and ICAO which can even be added to by local governments and the airlines themselves can have even stricter rules too (no one can override or contradict something IATA set), so for this to happen would be totally negligent, but would at least show there was no terrorism involved. The rules are updated regularly and everyone has to resit the whole course at least every 2 years and pass an exam. Varying levels of dangerous goods training applies to different roles, but cargo and baggage handlers get pretty much the highest level.

Not just Airport's

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...curity-7973180

In this day and age someone would find a way of hacking into it and no doubt using the data for malicious intent. What that malicious act could be I don't know, but then again, I'm not a nutter.

Thanks for your in depth reply.

We were advised to visit the website and print off the material with regard to our hotels

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...kdown_v1_0.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...s_Reviewed.pdf

The more I think about it the more I think it may have been lithium batteries. You're not allowed to have any in hold baggage, but can take them in hand baggage, up to a certain amount, which escapes me now. If someone had gone through security with some in a cabin bag, which is not illegal as such batteries are used in laptops, phones, cameras, tablets, powerbanks etc, then that bag was taken off them at the gate for being too big then it would go in to the hold. The gate agents are meant to ask if there are lithium batteries inside, but it's not hard to imagine this either didn't happen or the passenger simply lied and said no.

As there is no further security check between the gate and the hold then these could have been loaded in to the hold and a fire started somehow, maybe by one of the batteries short circuiting by touching another one or a bit of metal. If that then caused a spark big enough to set something else on fire then a sudden intense fire could start in the hold before the pilots had a chance to put it out with the inbuilt system or it simply became too violent for that to deal with. I know it's a long shot, but I really don't think it was a bomb as the fact the ACARS managed to report smoke means that something could have been burning for a while.

BBC News saying all the smoke and heat warnings originated from the cockpit or toilet behind the cockpit. Perhaps someone smoking in the toilet. Now BBC news going on about the batteries. I want to state I made this post before the News at 10 went on about lithium batteries!

If you had found a way of evading security at CDG with a bomb - why pick EgyptAir as your target? Seems a bit odd when just about every major world airline is there.