Via Breaking 911:
EgyptAir Flight 804 sent automatic radio messages about smoke in the front portion of the cabin in the minutes before controllers lost contact with the aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea, French accident investigator BEA said Saturday.
The electronic signals offer a puzzling twist to what may have happened to the flight on Thursday with 66 people. Two error messages, which started at 2:26 a.m. local time, suggested there was a fire on board, while later alerts indicated some type of failure in electrical equipment.
While similar signals have preceded air accidents in past crashes, the warning messages aren’t associated with a sudden disappearance from radar as occurred with the A320 over the Mediterranean. A Malaysian Air flight that was shot out of Ukrainian airspace in July 2014 broke apart so quickly that on-board systems didn’t have time to send distress messages.
“It’s too long for an explosion and too short for a traditional fire,” said John Cox, a former A320 pilot who is president of the Washington-based consultancy Safety Operating Systems. “It says we have more question than we have answers.”