(Bloomberg) -- Terrorism is a more probable cause of theEgyptAir crash than a mechanical fault, a seniorEgyptian official said hours after the jetliner plunged into theeastern Mediterranean Sea with 66 people on board.

“The possibility of terrorist attack is higher than technicalfailure, but it is still speculation and assumptions,” CivilAviation Minister Sherif Fathy said in a televised news conferencein Cairo, where the plane had been due to land after completing itsflight from Paris.

French President Francois Hollande, whose country has beenunder its highest level of alert since terror attacks last year,said no hypotheses were being ruled out, and French prosecutorsopened a probe since the plane’s last flight left from France.Greek officials said debris had been found near where the plane waslast detected, though they couldn’t confirm if it was from flightMS804. A French military Falcon 50 plane is also participating inthe search, French officials said.

“If the crew hadn’t sent an alert, then it’s probably a verysudden brutal incident, so one can certainly think of a bombattack,” Jean-Paul Troadec, a former director of France’s airaccident investigation bureau, said on Europe1 radio.

Flight path

The jet had traveled around North Africa and back and forth toEurope in the days before the crash, according to jet trackerFlightradar24. After returning to Cairo fromParis on May 16, the A320 flew back and forth to Brussels and thenmade trips to Asmara in Eritrea and Tunis before heading to Parison Wednesday.

When a Russian Metrojet passenger plane went down last Octoberin the Sinai, Egyptian officials took months before finallyaccepting it was the result of a bomb smuggled aboard.

Russia said an attack was the likely cause of Thursday’s crash,RIA Novosti reported. It cited Russian Federal SecurityService head Alexander Bortnikov as saying all interested partiesshould take action to find the perpetrators. He didn’t offerevidence to back up his claim.

Russian officials were quick to blame a bomb attack for theOctober downing of Metrojet Flight9268, which killed 224 people, and an Islamic Stateclaimed responsibility. Egyptian officials only conceded terrorismwas responsible months later, after insisting Russian and otherinvestigators were rushing to conclusions.

Red Sea resort

Russia, Britain and Germany suspended flights to Sharm el Sheikh,the gateway to Egypt’s most popular Red Sea resorts. Just thismonth, German authorities authorized the resumption of flights tothe Sinai airport, where Egyptian authorities have tightenedsecurity.

EgyptAir’s MS804 took off at 11:09 p.m. in Paris with 56passengers, 7 crew and 3 security personnel. The Airbus320, amodern single-aisle jet manufactured in 2003, was traveling atcruising altitude before disappearing from radar off the Egyptiancoast shortly after 2:30 a.m. Cairo time.

The plane made sudden movements before swooping into a deepdescent before air-traffic control lost contact, Greek authoritiessaid. Pilots sent no emergency signal, and their final contact withcontrollers revealed no signs of distress.

Fatal aviation accidents trending downwards

The number of fatalities in aviation accidents has been trendingdownwards in recent years thanks to significant safetyimprovements. If the EgyptAir crash is confirmed, it will be thesecond major disaster in 2016 after Flydubai Flight 981 crashed inRostov-onDon, Russia, on March 19, killing all 62 peopleonboard.

According to data compiled by the Aviation Safety Network, 1972 was the worstyear on record for the aviation industy with 2,373 people losingtheir lives in accidents.

This chart from Statista shows fatalities inairliner accidents since 1942:

You will find more statistics at Statista.

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