France's Hollande says EgyptAir Flight MS804 has likely 'crashed'

French President Francois Hollande told reporters Thursday that the missing EgyptAir FlightMS804 had likely "crashed," according to the BBC. Aircrafts and vessels were searching a section of the Mediterranean Sea for the flight that vanished on its way to Cairo from Paris earlier in the day. "The information we have gathered - ministers, members of government and, of course, the Egyptian authorities - confirm sadly that it has crashed. It is lost," Hollande said. There was confusion earlier after an EgyptAir official said search and rescue teams had picked up a possible emergency locator signal at 4:26 a.m. Cairo time, 89 minutes after the aircraft vanished. However an official for Egypt's civil aviation ministry later said the report was an error, according to The Wall Street Journal. The plane was roughly 30 minutes from landing, when contact was lost somewhere between the islands of Crete and Cyprus, according to the BBC. A total of 56 passengers, three security members and seven crew members were on board the flight which included 30 Egyptians, 15 French and several other nationalities. Greece's Navy is investigating a report from the crew of a Greek merchant ship that said they saw something similar to an "explosion" lighting up the sky 130 miles east of the island of Karpathos.

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