Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry offered condolences to the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the families of victims of the missing EgyptAir jet, expressing deep sympathy and solidarity with them while waiting for any information regarding the causes and circumstances of the incident.
The ministry also offered condolences to the leadership and people of France and all the countries that lost nationals on board of the said plane, calling on the victims’ families to be patient through this tough situation.
EgyptAir said on its Twitter account that Flight MS804 had departed Paris on Wednesday evening. It disappeared at 02:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) at an altitude of 37,000 feet in Egyptian air space, about 280 km (165 miles) from the Egyptian coast before it was due to land at 03:15 a.m. (0115 GMT).
Officials were reluctant to speculate over the disappearance while the search was under way. Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said 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.
But despite the caution, the country's aviation minister, Sherif Fathi, said a terrorist attack was more likely to have taken down the aircraft than a technical failure.
Airbus said the missing A320 was delivered to EgyptAir in November 2003 and had operated about 48,000 flight hours.
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.