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At no point did the pilots say they had a problem with their landing gear or any other type of emergency, according to the radio calls. A deadly plane crash in Pakistan is prompting questions about how the crew could touch down without landing gear when their sophisticated jetliner was bristling with equipment to prevent pilots from doing just that "It is unbelievable to me that an airline crew on a jet like an Airbus, with all the warning systems, would attempt to land the plane without the gear extended," said John Cox, an aviation safety consultant who formerly flew...

Vietnam has suspended 27 Pakistani pilots working at local airlines after 262 of 860 civilian commercial pilots in Pakistan were found to have fake licenses. "All of the pilots are of Pakistani nationality and licensed in the country. These pilots are working at several airlines in Viet Nam," Dinh Viet Thang, Civil Aviation Administration of Viet Nam (CAAV), was quoted as saying by Vietnam News Agency. Minister of Transport of Vietnam Nguyen Van The has asked the CAAV to review the licenses and certificates of foreign pilots who are working at local airlines. The minister ordered ban of fight missions...

(WIkipedia...."During the certification process, the FAA delegated many evaluations to Boeing, allowing the manufacturer to review their own product.[48][49] It was widely reported that Boeing pushed to expedite approval of the 737 MAX to compete with the Airbus A320neo. That aircraft hit the market nine months ahead of Boeing's model.") Article excerpt... ...During his time as President of the United States, Barack Obama promoted the sale of Boeing planes—including the 737 Max 8 planes—around the world. In November 2011, in Bali, Indonesia, President Obama announced an agreement between Boeing and Lion Air. "For the last several days I’ve been talking...

The plane’s cockpit voice recorder indicates there was a fire on the aircraft before it crashed — and an attempt to put it out, a senior source from the airline told CNN Tuesday. The revelation adds another detail to a picture that’s been slowly emerging since the May 19 crash. But investigators have said it’s still too soon to say what happened aboard the flight. The cockpit voice recorder captures sounds from the flight deck, including flight crew conversation, alarms and background noise that can help investigators understand what the flight crew was doing. Authorities haven’t released a transcript or...

AIRO (AP) - The voice and data recorders from the EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean nearly a month ago are "extensively damaged" and will need repairs before they can be analyzed, an Egyptian official said Friday, dampening hopes for quick answers as to what caused the disaster. The official didn't elaborate on how long the repairs would take but said if this cannot be done in Egypt, the so-called "black boxes" would be sent abroad. The official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media. With the wreckage of the Airbus...

A second flight recorder with information on crashed EgyptAir Flight MS804 has been retrieved, Egyptian investigators said on Friday. The Egyptian investigation committee said preparations were under way to transfer the two flight recorders to Alexandria where they will be received by an official from the general prosecutor's office and investigators.

Egypt's investigation committee said a doomed plane's cockpit voice recorder was found and pulled from the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT Egypt on Wednesday said that it spotted and obtained images from the wreckage of the EgyptAir plane flying from Paris to Cairo that crashed into the Mediterranean last month, killing all 66 people on board, according to a statement by the country's investigation committee. The committee said in a statement that a vessel, the John Lethbridge, contracted by the Egyptian government to join search efforts for the data recorders and the wreckage "had identified several main locations of the...

Cockpit voice recorder of crashed EgyptAir flight found in Mediterranean, Egyptian investigators say

<p>Egypt says it has spotted the wreckage of the EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean last month, killing all 66 people on board.</p> <p>An investigation committee said in a statement late Wednesday that a vessel "the vessel contracted by the Egyptian government to join the search efforts for the data recorders and the wreckage of the doomed A320; had identified several main locations of the wreckage, accordingly the first images of the wreckage were provided to the investigation committee."</p>

Laplace's equipment picked up the "signals from the seabed of the wreckage search area, assumed to be from one of the data recorders," the Egyptian statement read. It added that a second ship, the John Lethbridge, affiliated with the Deep Ocean Search firm, will join the search team later this week. Locator pings emitted by flight data and cockpit voice recorders can be picked up from deep underwater. The Laplace is equipped with three detectors made by the Alseamar company designed to detect and localize signals from the flight recorders, which are believed to be at a depth of about...

Missing EgyptAir flight MS804 had reportedly been forced to make three emergency landings in the 24 hours leading up to crash. The Airbus 320 is said to have been forced to turn around shortly after takeoff on three separate occasions after it's warning systems signalled an anomaly onboard. The claims, made in French media, have since been denied by the Egyptian lead crash investigation committee.

An engineer stands next to a Hellenic Air Force C-130 HAUP aircraft at the 133rd Hellenic Air Force Base in Kasteli on the island of Crete, Greece, May 20, 2016. The plane is participating in a search operation for the missing EgyptAir flight 804 Airbus A320. Credit: Stefanos Rapanis/REUTERS

Egyptian political commentator Nabih Al-Wahsh accused Israel of downing EgyptAir Flight 804, and called for Egyptians and Arabs to kill any Israeli they come across and to mutilate his body. Al-Wahsh, a lawyer, filed a lawsuit with Egyptian courts four years ago in an attempt to abolish the Camp David Accords. Al-Asseema TV presenter tried to stop Al-Wahsh from inciting to violence, but to no avail, as Al-Wahsh called for the establishment of “death squads” that would hunt down Israelis all over the world. The show aired on May 20. Nabih Al-Wahsh: "All the evidence indicates that the filthy Zionist...

Forensic expert: EgyptAir human remains suggest explosion CAIRO (AP) — Human remains retrieved from the crash site of EgyptAir Flight 804 have burn marks and are very small in size, suggesting an explosion on board may have downed the aircraft in the east Mediterranean, a senior Egyptian forensics official said 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...

Egypt rejects report that crash evidence points to explosionThe chief of Egypt's forensics authority denied reports Tuesday that an initial examination of human remains from doomed EgyptAir Flight 804 pointed to an explosion, Egypt's state news agency MENA reported. “Everything published about this matter is completely false and mere assumptions that did not come from the forensics authority,” MENA quoted Hesham Abdelhamid as saying in a statement.

A senior Egyptian forensics official says 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. The official is part of the Egyptian investigative team and has personally examined the remains at a Cairo morgue. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he isn't authorised to release the information. He says all 80 pieces brought to Cairo so far are small and that 'there isn't even a whole body part, like an arm or a head'.

We are entering a new era – one in which terrorists place bombs in the sky and detonate them whenever they see fit. EgyptAir MS804 is just the latest example of their ability to transform an airliner into an IED. Authorities almost immediately agreed that MS804 was likely the victim of a terrorist attack. However, they aren't able to discern how that took place, given the extensive passenger screening the flight underwent on each leg of its journey. Ascertaining the method requires a look at the history of this particular flight and an honest appraisal of who stood to gain...

More evidence is arising to show that the pilot of Flight 804 went suicide. People ask: if indeed the pilot went suicide ‘Muslim Kamikaze style’, why plunge the aircraft loaded with mostly Muslim passengers into the sea and how does that make any sense from an Islamic perspective on Jihadi martyrdom? Answer: everything. Shakeer’s [Flight 804's pilot] link to Amr Khaled, just like Shah’s link with Anwar Ibrahim should raise some serious alarm bells. Both Ibrahim and Khaled are linked to their love to the Muslim spiritual leader, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi. Anyone can click to see the man is a...

More evidence is arising to show that the pilot of Flight 804 went suicide. He did some bizarre things. He converted the plane into a makeshift mosque, used the equipment to tell passengers the direction of Mecca. Had a last supper and said “farewell” as if ‘we who are about to die salute you’. He called his brother before take-off telling him to ‘pray for him’ as he was going for martyrdom. He had connections with one of the most radical preachers and terror supporters in Egypt. (link)

Investigators are holding back from drawing any definitive conclusions as to the cause of the crash of EgyptAir Flight 804 last Thursday during a flight from Paris to Cairo, pending retrieval of flight recorders and further examination of the wreckage. However, terrorism is suspected as the most likely cause.