Report: Signals detected from EgyptAir Flight 804 in Mediterranean

[Eugene]

Source: CNN

Report: Signals detected from EgyptAir Flight 804 in Mediterranean

By Sarah Sirgany, Salma Abdelaziz and Madison Park, CNN
Updated 2222 GMT (0622 HKT) May 26, 2016

(CNN) - Airbus has detected signals from the Mediterranean Sea where EgyptAir Flight 804 crashed last week, Egypt's state-run Al Ahram news agency reported Thursday.

The signals were emitted by the plane's emergency locator transmitter, a device that can manually or automatically activate at impact and will usually send a distress signal. The signals from the emergency locator transmitter are different from the pings emitted by the "black boxes."

Having these signals narrows down the area that the multinational search team has been focusing on -- which a few days ago was described as "about the size of Connecticut." It dramatically decreases the search area to a 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) radius, giving investigators a more specific location to detect pings from the black boxes.

The missing EgyptAir plane, which had 66 people on board, was an Airbus A320 heading from Paris to Cairo.

A French vessel, equipped with special detection equipment to locate the pings, will begin an underwater search for the wreckage "in the coming days," according to the BEA, France's accident investigation agency. That French naval vessel, La Place, departed Tuesday from Porto Vecchio toward the Egyptian coast.

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Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/26/middleeast/egyptair-airbus-signals-detected/

[Recursion]

1. I think of the Med as "small", but it took until a couple of days ago

for the French Navy to get there from Marseille. When Nelson rushed to the Nile he only took 4 days longer.