Greece deploys military jets in search for missing Egyptian plane

The Greek authorities deployed military jets to the area located 130 nautical miles southeast of Karpathos Island in search of an Egyptian plane that went missing this morning.

According to a statement circulated by the Greek embassy here, the Greek Armed Forces deployed a C-130 aircraft and an early-warning EMB-145H plane with another C-130 on its way from northern Crete Island to the search location.

The navy frigate Nikiforos Fokas sailed to the area, while two Super Puma helicopters were sent to Karpathos ready to operate, it said.

The Hellinic Civil Aviation Authority imposed a fly-ban on an area extending nearly 40 miles around the area, where the Egyptian plane was last contacted, it added.

The plane was en route from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport to Cairo International Airport when it vanished from radar 10 miles after entering the Egyptian airfield.

Radar lost contact with the flight at 2:45 Cairo. 

An official source at EgyptAir said that the nationalities of the passengers are as follow: 30 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis and one Briton, Belgian, Kuwaiti, Saudi, Sudanese, Chadian, Portuguese, Algerian and Canadian.