CAIRO (Reuters) - The Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry said on Thursday morning its military unit had received a distress signal from the missing EgyptAir flight at 4.26am (local time).
That is more than an hour after the plane's scheduled landing time in Cairo of 3.05am, and almost two hours after it disappeared from radar screens at 2.30am.
The distress signal could have come from an emergency locator transmitter or a beacon, the ministry said.
The last communication with the pilot was when the plane was over the Greek island of Kea
"The pilot did not mention any problems," Kostas Litzerakis, head of Greece's civil aviation department, told the Reuters news agency.
The plane disappeared from radar screens two minutes after exiting Greek airspace.
EgyptAir flight 804, an Airbus A320, was heading from Paris to Cairo. The plane was carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew: two cockpit crew, five cabin crew and three security personnel. The airline said two babies and one child were on board.
The airline said among the passengers were 30 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis, and one each from the UK, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria and Canada.