Search Teams Say They Have Detected an Emergency Signal From EgyptAir Flight 804

Rishi Iyengar
Updated
The signal will reportedly narrow the flight's search radius to about 3 miles

Officials searching for EgyptAir Flight 804, which crashed en route from Paris to Cairo last week with 66 people on board, said Thursday that they had detected an emergency signal that could enable them to locate the wreckage.

The investigator leading the search effort, Captain Ayman al-Moqadem, told Egypt’s state-run newspaper al-Ahram that the signal narrows the search radius for the aircraft’s fuselage to about 3 miles, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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Small pieces of debris and a few human remains found in the Mediterranean Sea are thus far the only clues about the ill-fated Airbus A320, which is believed to have crashed in the Mediterranean after vanishing from radar screens shortly before its scheduled landing on May 19.

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France, which is assisting in the investigation, has sent a naval vessel equipped with underwater probes to speed up the search, Reuters reports. Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi said Sunday that Egypt had sent its own submarines as well.