Paris: Almost six years after an EgyptAir flight crashed, killing all 66 people on board, the cause of the tragedy has come to light.
According to a report by French aviation experts, the pilot’s lit cigarette caused a fire in the cockpit, leading to the accident.
The 134-page report states that the pilot of flight MS804 had lit a cigarette in the cockpit due to which oxygen leaking from an emergency mask combusted.
The report further says that Egyptian pilots regularly smoked in the cockpit but the practice was not banned by the airline.
The Airbus A320 plane was on way from Paris to Cairo in May 2016 when it crashed into the Mediterranean Sea, near Crete island, under mysterious circumstances.
The plane was flying at 37,000 feet when it crashed. The plane’s black box was recovered from the ocean near Greece following a major search operation.
Egyptian authorities had claimed that a terrorist attack had led to the crash.
Forty Egyptians and 15 French nationals were among those who lost their lives.
