French president: EgyptAir flight crashed

French President François Hollande on Thursday said that a missing EgyptAir flight has crashed.  

Flight MS804, from Paris to Cairo, dropped off radar late Wednesday over the Mediterranean Sea. 

An informed source at EGYPTAIR stated that Flight no MS804,which departed Paris at 23:09 (CEST),heading to Cairo has disappeared from radar.

— EGYPTAIR (@EGYPTAIR) May 19, 2016

{mosads}The plane, an Airbus A320, was flying at about 37,000 feet and was 10 minutes away from entering Egyptian airspace when contact was lost, according to reports. It is carrying 56 passengers, including three children, seven crew members and three security personnel.  

Details about the aircraft remain unknown, but the Egyptian aviation minister declined to rule out the possibility of terrorism during a press conference Thursday.

“If you analyze the situation properly … the possibility of having a terror attack is higher than the possibility of having a technical problem,” Sherif Fathy, the minister, acknowledged.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has already asserted that the plane fell victim to a terrorist strike, in what would be an echo of last year’s successful attempt by the Islamic State on Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to bring down a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

According to the Greek defense minister, the jet appeared to zig-zag briefly before plunging thousands of feet and disappearing from Greece’s radar screens.  

President Obama received a briefing on the disappearance of the EgyptAir plane from counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco, according to the White House. 

Spokesman Eric Schultz did not say what caused the plane to go missing but said Obama “asked to be updated throughout the day as the situation warrants” and directed administration officials to offer assistance to authorities overseas.

A major search operation is now underway in the Mediterranean Sea involving Greek and Egyptian military forces.

France has also offered to send boats and plans, according to reports.

Greek aviation officials said nothing appeared out of the ordinary during conversations with Flight MS804’s crew.

One official told AFP that the plane had crashed “around 130 nautical miles” off the southern Greek island of Karpathos.

Julian Hattem, Jordan Fabian and Mark Hensch contributed to this report, which was updated on May 19 at 9:40 a.m.