Human remains retrieved from the crash site of EgyptAir Flight 804 suggest there was an explosion on board that may have brought down the aircraft in the east Mediterranean, a senior Egyptian forensics official said on Tuesday.
“The logical explanation is that an explosion brought it down,” the official told The Associated Press.
The official, who is part of the Egyptian team investigating the crash that killed all 66 people on board the flight from Paris to Cairo early last Thursday, has personally examined the remains at a Cairo morgue. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
All 80 pieces that have been brought to Cairo so far are small. “There isn’t even a whole body part, like an arm or a head,” said the official, adding that one piece was the left part of a head.
“But I cannot say what caused the blast,” he said. He did not say whether traces of explosives were found on the human remains retrieved so far.
Egyptian officials have disputed a claim that the condition of human remains found at the crash site of an EgyptAir plane suggests an explosion.
An unnamed forensic examiner quoted by the Associated Press said the remains were so small an explosion was the only “logical” explanation.
But an Egyptian justice ministry spokesman told the BBC no traces of explosives had been found.
