EgyptAir flight MS804 sent automated messages signalling smoke onboard before plunging into the Mediterranean, the French aviation safety agency said Saturday, as search teams hunted for more wreckage. 


The Airbus A320 carrying 66 people had been flying from Paris to Cairo early Thursday when it plummeted and turned full circle before vanishing off radar, with some debris later found in the Mediterranean Sea. 


While the automated messages may offer clues, more wreckage including the black boxes will need to be found before investigators can piece together what happened. 


"There were ACAR messages emitted by the plane indicating that there was smoke in the cabin shortly before data transmission broke off," a spokesman for France's Bureau of Investigations and Analysis told AFP. 


ACAR, which stands for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, is a digital system that transmits short messages between aircraft and ground stations. 


It was "far too soon to interpret and understand the cause of the accident as long as we have not found the wreckage or the flight data recorders," he added. 


Search teams were scouring the sea Saturday for more parts of the plane and the black boxes for clues on why it came down.--

Source: NNA