Deep Water Searches To Begin For EgyptAir Jet

Deep water searches for the wreckage and black boxes from EgyptAir Flight 804 will start in the coming days.

France's air safety agency BEA said its investigators were aboard a French navy surveillance vessel, La Place, which set sail from Corsica on Thursday.

It is working alongside the Egyptian authorities to investigate the 19 May crash, which killed 66 passengers and crew aboard the Paris to Cairo flight.

Earlier there was confusion over whether search teams had picked up signals from a beacon believed to be from the EgyptAir plane.

Reports had suggested that the signals narrowed down the search area to a three-mile (5km) radius.

But later reports, quoting well-placed sources, suggested that these signals were not new - and had been detected on the day of the crash.

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The French vessel taking part in the search is equipped with three deep-water devices known as Detector 6000s.

They can detect the Airbus A320's black box signals, the French agency said.

Egyptian authorities "will be piloting these underwater searches" with the BEA's help, it added.

Talks are still under way to add a second vessel equipped with a deep-sea exploration robot and the recovery capabilities required to work at an estimated depth of 3,000m (10,000ft) to the mission.

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Some debris from the plane - including life vests, passenger belongings and pieces of wreckage - has been found, but the fuselage and black boxes are still missing.

Egyptian authorities have said they believe terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure.

Some aviation experts have said the erratic flight reported by the Greek defence minister suggests a bomb blast or a struggle in the cockpit.