The remains of the passengers of EgyptAir flight MS804 that crashed into the Mediterranean in May last year have now been handed over to their families. On Saturday, the head of the Egyptian Flight Attendants Union Osama Abdel-Baset said that the bodies of the 10 crew members from the flight had been handed over to their families by the government and the remains of the rest of the passengers would be handed over this week. Meanwhile, France's Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyses pour la sécurité de l'aviation civile, the country's BEA Air Crash Investigation Agency, said earlier this month that conclusions regarding the crash of EgyptAir flight MS804 could not be drawn as the causes were still being investigated. The statement came in response to the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation's statement that said that traces of explosives had been found on the remains of the victims of the crashed flight. “The Central Directorate of Aircraft Accidents at the Ministry of Civil Aviation has received the forensic report related to the human remains of the victims, and the report indicates that traces of explosive substances on some of the human remains have been found,” the statement said on 15 December. “The investigation committee has referred the case to the State Prosecution for further investigation, as a criminal act may have been behind the accident,” the statement added. Aviation safety expert Hani Galal said that handing the remains of the victims of the crash over to the families did not mean that the investigation was over. “In this kind of accident, the forensic evidence authority keeps samples from the remains for further investigation,” he said. He added that it was obligatory under the civil aviation law for the Ministry of Civil Aviation to refer the case to the public prosecutor if there was evidence that could indicate that a criminal act was behind the crash of the plane. EgyptAir flight MS804 crashed into the Mediterranean on 16 May last year, killing all 66 people on board, during a flight from the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to Cairo. The cause of the crash remains unclear. However, the cockpit voice recorder reveals that the pilots fought to put out a fire before the crash, and automatic electronic messages sent out by the plane showed smoke detectors going off within it. In July, the Al-Youm Al-Sabei daily published a story citing Egyptian official sources to the effect that no evidence had been found to show that an act of terrorism had been behind the crash and analysis of the flight data recorder had revealed smoke in a lavatory compartment. Recovered debris from the plane's front section also showed signs of fire damage, suggesting a blaze may have broken out on board. The investigation also showed no signs of malfunctioning in the EgyptAir plane, with the daily Al-Ahram publishing a document in May from the Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), a digital datalink for the transmission of short messages between aircraft and ground stations, which revealed that the plane had transmitted “11 electronic messages” beginning at 2109 GMT on 18 May. The first two messages indicated that the engines were functioning properly. A third message, sent at 0026 GMT on 19 May four minutes before the plane vanished from the radar, revealed a rise in the temperature of the cockpit's right-hand window. The plane then continued to send automatic messages for three more minutes before dropping off the radar screens.
