AN EgyptAir jet carrying 66 passengers and crew from Paris to Cairo disappeared from radar over the Mediterranean sea Thursday after swerving in mid-air and plunging from cruising height. French President Francois Hollande confirmed the aircraft “came down and is lost.”

    Aircraft debris has been discovered close to the island of Karpathos, Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday night, quoting Greek TV.

    Officials have yet to confirm the debris is from the missing EgyptAir flight MS804, it said.

    Earlier in the day, Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail announced a search was under way for the missing Airbus A320, but it was too early to rule out any explanation, including an attack like the one blamed for bringing down a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula last year.

    Egypt’s Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy told a press conference that the jet is still “missing” until its wreckage is found.

    He said it was too early to tell what caused the disappearance and that the possibility of a terror activity or a technical failure cannot be ruled out.

    Officials with the airline and the Egyptian civil aviation department told Reuters they believed the Airbus had crashed into the Mediterranean between Greece and Egypt.

    In Athens, Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said the Airbus had first swerved 90 degrees to the left, then spun through 360 degrees to the right. After plunging from 37,000 feet (11,285 meters) to 15,000, it vanished from Greek radar screens.

    EgyptAir said on its Twitter account that the plane had departed Paris at 23:09 (CEST). It disappeared at 2:30 a.m. at an altitude of 37,000 feet in Egyptian air space, about 280 km from the Egyptian coast before it was due to land at 3:15 a.m.

    Greece deployed aircraft and a frigate to the area to help with the search. A defense ministry source said authorities were also investigating an account from the captain of a merchant ship who reported a “flame in the sky” about 130 nautical miles (241 kilometers) south of the island of Karpathos.

    According to Greece’s civil aviation chief, calls from Greek air traffic controllers to the jet went unanswered just before it left the country’s airspace, and it disappeared from radar screens soon afterwards.

    By early afternoon, the search in the Mediterranean had yet to turn up anything. “Absolutely nothing has been found so far,” a senior Greek coastguard official told Reuters.

    Greek authorities were searching in the area south of the island of Karpathos without result so far, Defense Minister Kammenos told a news conference.

    There was no official suggestion of whether the disappearance was due to technical failure or any other reason such as sabotage by ultra-hardline Islamists, who have targeted airports, airliners and tourist sites in Europe, Egypt, Tunisia and other Middle Eastern countries over the past few years.

    The aircraft was carrying 56 passengers — with one child and two infants among them — and 10 crew, EgyptAir said. They included 30 Egyptian and 15 French nationals, along with citizens of 10 other countries. There were no Chinese passengers on board.

    Asked if he could rule out that terrorists were behind the incident, Prime Minister Ismail told reporters: “We cannot exclude anything at this time or confirm anything. All the search operations must be concluded so we can know the cause.”

    With its archaeological sites and Red Sea resorts, Egypt is traditionally a popular destination for Western tourists. But the industry has been badly hit following the downing of the Russian Metrojet flight last October, killing all 224 people on board, as well as by an Islamist insurgency and a string of bomb attacks.

    (SD-Agencies)

    The missing flight’s pilot had clocked up 6,275 hours of flying experience, including 2,101 hours on the A320, while the first officer had 2,766 hours, EgyptAir said.

    At one point EgyptAir said the plane had sent an emergency signal at 04:26 a.m., two hours after it disappeared from radar screens. However, Fathi said later that further checks found that no SOS was received.

    FRANCE, EGYPT TO COOPERATE

    The weather was clear at the time the plane disappeared, according to Eurocontrol, the European air traffic network.

    “Our daily weather assessment does not indicate any issues in that area at that time,” it said.

    Under U.N. aviation rules, Egypt will automatically lead an investigation into the accident assisted by countries including France, where the jet was assembled, and the United States, where engine maker Pratt & Whitney is based.

    Russia and Western governments have said the Metrojet plane that crashed on Oct. 31 was probably brought down by a bomb, and the Islamic State militant group said it had smuggled an explosive device on board.

    That crash called into question Egypt’s campaign to eradicate Islamist violence. Militants have stepped up attacks on Egyptian soldiers and police since Sisi, then serving as army chief, toppled elected President Mohamed Mursi, an Islamist, in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

    In March, an EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked and forced to land in Cyprus by a man with what authorities said was a fake suicide belt. He was arrested after giving himself up.

    EgyptAir has a fleet of 57 Airbus and Boeing jets, including 15 of the Airbus A320 family of aircraft, according to airfleets.com.

    (Additional reporting by Amina Ismail, Ali Abdelatti, Mostafa Hashem, Asma Alsharif, Victoria Bryan, Siva Govindasamy, Sophie Louet, Tim Hepher, Michele Kambas, George Georgiopoulos, Renee Maltezou, Brian Love and Miral Fahmy.; Writing by Lincoln Feast, Samia Nakhoul and David Stamp; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Paul Tait and Peter Graff)