New revelations on the dramatic crash of a Paris - Cairo flight, which killed 66 people, including 15 French people in 2016. An expert report sent to the French courts, which had opened an investigation for "
involuntary homicide
", would put in causes the pilots of the Airbus A320 which belonged to the company Egyptair, according to the Italian newspaper
Corriere della Sera
.
To discover
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According to this report, relayed by our colleagues from
Les Echos
, one of the pilots of flight MS804 was smoking in the cockpit of the plane, in violation of safety rules.
His cigarette, coupled with a leak from the co-pilot's oxygen mask left in "
emergency
" mode, would have been the cause of a fire that caused the crash of the aircraft.
The Office of Investigations and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, contacted by
Le Figaro
and having worked on the file, has so far not responded to our requests.
Other clues would corroborate this scenario, namely the analysis of sound recordings from a black box of the device.
The investigators would thus have heard a flow of air coming from the microphone of the oxygen mask.
The use of cigarettes would be confirmed by the presence of ashtrays on board, again according to the Italian daily.
Mutism of the Egyptian authorities
Flight MS804, connecting Paris to Cairo, crashed in the Mediterranean Sea on May 19, 2016 between Crete and the northern coast of Egypt, after suddenly disappearing from radar screens.
The Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA), the French authority responsible for safety investigations for serious accidents in aviation, favors the hypothesis of a fire in the cockpit to explain this disaster.
Read alsoEgyptair crash: look back on a year of investigation
On the Egyptian side, the authorities put an end to their security investigation at the end of 2016 and sent the file to the Egyptian courts, without news so far.
Cairo claimed in December 2016 to have discovered traces of explosives on the remains of victims, arousing skepticism on the French side, especially since no organization had claimed responsibility for an attack.
Since then, the Egyptian authorities have not provided any new information.