Egypt: Traces of explosives found on victims of Paris flight

CAIRO -- Traces of explosives have been found on some of the victims of an EgyptAir flight from Paris that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea in May, Egypt's government said Thursday, a finding that could deal another blow to the country's vital tourism sector.

A Civil Aviation Ministry statement said a criminal investigation will be launched into the crash of Flight 804, which killed all 66 people on board and came just seven months after a Russian passenger plane was blown up over the Sinai Peninsula in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

That attack, which killed all 226 people on board in October 2015, led to widespread flight cancellations and emptied out Egypt's Red Sea resorts. Tourism has been down sharply in much of the rest of the country following years of unrest unleashed by the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt never has said officially what caused the downing of the Russian plane. But a local IS affiliate said it blew up the plane with a bomb smuggled on board, and Russia said the aircraft likely was downed by explosives.

No one has claimed to have brought down Flight 804. France opened a manslaughter inquiry into the crash in June but made clear it was an accident investigation, not a terrorism investigation.

An official at the office of Egypt's top prosecutor said Egyptian criminal investigators would coordinate with their French counterparts. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

Authorities have said before dawn May 19, the Airbus A320 lurched left, then right, spun all the way around and plummeted 38,000 feet into the Mediterranean Sea as it was approaching Egypt's northern coast. The plane never issued a distress call.

Experts have suggested a rogue passenger might have taken control of the plane, or there may have been a struggle between the pilots.

But three European security officials said at the time the flight's passenger manifest contained no known names on terror watch lists, often used by European and American security and law-enforcement agencies.

Egyptian investigators said in July after analyzing a recovered cockpit voice recorder the pilots of Flight 804 tried to extinguish a fire on board the aircraft. The recordings were consistent with data that previously had been recovered from the plane's wreckage that showed heat, fire and smoke around a bathroom and the avionics area, they said.

France's accident investigation agency has said smoke detectors went off during Flight 804's final moments.

Industry publication Aviation Herald also has reported sensors detected smoke in the plane's lavatory, as well as a fault in two of the plane's cockpit windows, in the final moments of the flight.

Egyptian independent aviation investigator Hany Galal said Thursday's findings explain the fact the pilots did not issue any distress calls and the aircraft's erratic movements before it crashed.

IS has carried out several attacks in recent years, mainly in the Sinai, where it is based, but also on the Egyptian mainland. The group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing Sunday at a Cairo church that killed at least 24 people, mainly women, and wounded nearly 50.

In recent months, Egypt has spent millions of dollars trying to restore international confidence in its airport-security measures.

Russia had suspended all flights to Egypt after the October crash, while Britain canceled flights to Sharm El-Sheikh, the Red Sea resort from which the airliner took off.

Associated Press writer Sam Magdy contributed to this report.