TRAGEDY// EgyptAir Flight 804 from Paris to Cairo with 56 passengers and 10 crew, crashed over the Mediterranan Sea last month about 130nm north of Alexandria (Egypt) and about 210nm north-northwest of Cairo, when a number of ACARS messages indicating cockpit window temperature sensors faults and optical smoke detector activations were received.

The hunt is now on for the plane’s black boxes — the flight data and cockpit voice recorders that could unlock the mystery. Authorities say the plane lurched left, then right, spun all the way around and disappeared out of radar reach at 10,000 feet and finally plummeted 38,000 feet into the sea — never issuing a distress call. In the aftermath of the crash, both the French and Egyptian leaders said that terrorism could not be ruled out, but there has been no claim of responsibility from any group. The aircraft was located crashed in the Mediterranean Sea; there were no survivors. Egyptian authorities say they believe terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure, and some aviation experts say the erratic finale to the flight suggests a bomb blast or a struggle in the cockpit, although no evidence of either has emerged.