by Donald Wood
Last updated: 10:58 AM ET, Wed July 6, 2016
Photo courtesy of Thinkstock
Following an investigation into the cockpit recorders retrieved from the EgyptAir Flight 804 wreckage, officials are reporting that pilots onboard the doomed plane battled a fire before it fell into the Mediterranean Sea.
According to AlJazeera.com, the Egyptian investigative committee announced Tuesday that the data found on the cockpit voice recorder is consistent with the information collected from the wreckage which indicates there were signs of heat, fire and smoke around a bathroom and the avionics area of the plane before it crashed.
Investigators said they need more time to completely analyze the recorders before they can begin pinpointing the cause of the crash. The EgyptAir plane was en route from Paris to Cairo when it disappeared from radar, but no distress call was ever made by the flight crew.
Aviation specialist Oliver McGee spoke to Al Jazeera about the possible reasons why the pilots didn't ask for help.
"Fire on board is a very critical event," McGee said. "It is very difficult for pilots to aviate, to navigate, much less communicate when they are also serving as firefighters on the plane."
All 66 people onboard the plane died on May 19 when the aircraft made a 90-degree turn and then a full 360-degree turn before plummeting from 11,582 meters to 4,572 meters and disappearing from radar. Investigators are not ruling out any theories about the crash until all the data is collected and analyzed.
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