The Egyptian navy said on Friday morning it had found the wreckage of passenger jet EgyptAir MS804, which went missing somewhere between Greece and Egypt eary on Thursday morning.
According to a statement from EgyptAir, naval forces inolved in the search operation found wreckage 295 km off the coast of Alexandria.
The statement expressed condolences to the families of the victims and stressed it would take all the necessary measures regarding the incident, saying any futher developments would be announced immediately.
The EgyptAir flght went missing with 56 passengers and 10 crew on board in the early hours of Thursday. The flight from Paris to Cairo disappeared from radar screens shortly after leaving Greek air space and entering Egyptian air space.
News that wreckage had been found was also released by Egyptian army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir, who published a statement on his Facebook page on Friday, according to Associated Press.
Samir said that Egyptian jets and naval vessels participating in the search for the missing plane had found "personal belongings of the passengers and parts of the plane debris" 290 km north of Alexandria.
Late on Thursday, Greek officials had reported finding lifevests and wreckage of the same aircraft, but these reports were later contradicted.
According to Reuters, EgyptAir Vice President Ahmed Adel told CNN late on Thursday that the wreckage had not been found.
"We stand corrected on finding the wreckage because what we identified is not a part of our plane. So the search and rescue is still going on," Adel said.
The discovery of wreckage on Friday, confirmed by both EgyptAir and the Egyptian military, appears to end any hopes that the plane had not crashed into the sea, although the search for possible survivors appears to be continuing.
While the cause of the plane crash is still unknown, on Thursday, Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy said that he was leaning toward suspecting terrorism, although no conclusions could be drawn until all the evidence was in.
