An EgyptAir plane that crashed en route to Cairo, killing all 66 people on board, was shot down by a pilot who had a cigarette in the cockpit, starting a fire, according to a new report.
EgyptAir flight MS804 was en route from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to Cairo International Airport on May 19, 2016 when it crashed between the Greek island of Crete and northern Egypt.
According to a report by the New York Post, France’s Civil Aviation Safety Investigation and Analysis Bureau (BEA) has now concluded that pilot Mohamed Said Shoukair’s smoke disruption led to a fire on board the Airbus A320 when his cigarette ignited the oxygen emerging from an oxygen mask in the cabin.
The plane crash resulted in the deaths of 56 passengers and 10 crew members, including 12 French, 30 Egyptian, 2 Iraqi, 1 Canadian and 1 British.
Egyptian officials initially said the plane crash was the result of a terrorist attack and claimed that traces of explosives were found on the victims’ bodies, but this claim has been largely refuted.
In 2018, the French BEA determined that the flight crashed due to an onboard fire, based on analysis of data from the plane’s black box recorder, which was recovered by the US Navy in deep water near Greece although at the time investigators didn’t say what exactly caused all the hell on board.
But in March 2022, the BEA released a new report claiming that just prior to the crash, a pilot’s oxygen mask in the cockpit leaked oxygen, based on black box data that captured the hiss of oxygen.
The oxygen mask in question had only been replaced by an EgyptAir maintenance worker three days before the fateful flight, but for an unknown reason had turned its dump valve to the “emergency” position, which Airbus’ safety manual says could lead to a leak.
Incredibly, EgyptAir pilots were allowed to smoke in the cockpit at the time of the leak a rule that has since changed. Smoke on board, combined with leaking oxygen, set the stage for the fire, according to French aviation experts.
The fatal plane crash is currently the subject of a wrongful death case before the Paris Court of Appeal.
The 134page report, reviewed by Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra, was presented to the Paris court at the request of local judges.
Egypt refused to release its account of the accident and in 2018 dismissed the BEA’s initial findings, dismissing them as “unfounded”.
The families of the victims accused the Egyptian authorities of not cooperating with the investigation into the accident.
Antoine Lachenaud, a lawyer representing the family of Clement DaeschnerCormary, a 26yearold passenger who died in the crash, said the new report shows the plane’s crash was caused by human error.
“When warnings are systematically ignored, an accident occurs and it becomes impossible to claim that it was due to chance,” he said.