It has been just over a week since EgyptAir Flight 804 vanished from radar screens over the Mediterranean Sea. The wreckage was found a short time later.
Now, specialist teams have detected signals coming from the aircraft’s Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT). This is the first major breakthrough in the efforts to identify the cause of Flight 804’s demise.
The ELT can be activated manually, and it always activates on impact. It sends a distress signal that pinpoints the location of the wreckage. The search area has now been dramatically narrowed down to a 3.1 mile radius.
Flight 804, an Airbus 320 carrying 66 people on board, was en route from Paris to Cairo when it came down over the Mediterranean Sea just before entering Egyptian airspace. The cause of the crash remains a mystery, and nothing has been ruled out at this point.