Cairo // Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi said on Sunday that an investigation into the cause of an EgyptAir plane crash could take a long time and that all possible scenarios were still being considered.
In his first public remarks on Thursday's crash, which killed all 66 people on board, Mr El Sisi said the facts would be made public as soon as they were available.
"This could take a long time but no one can hide these things," Mr El Sisi told assembled ministers and members of parliament in the port city of Damietta.
EgyptAir flight MS804 crashed in the Mediterranean on its way to Cairo from Paris, killing all on board including 30 Egyptians and 15 French people.
Shortly before it disappeared off radar screens the plane sent a series of warnings indicating that smoke had been detected on board, French investigators said on Saturday.
The signals did not indicate what caused the smoke or fire but they offered the first clues as to what unfolded in the moments before the crash.
"Until now all scenarios are possible. So please, it is very important that we do not talk and say there is a specific scenario," Mr El Sisi said.
Egypt's aviation minister had said on Thursday that terrorism was more likely than technical failure, but Mr El Sisi said in a televised address that "all the theories are possible".
"There is no particular theory we can affirm right now," he said.
Mr El Sisi said a submarine that could operate at a depth of 3,000 metres under sea level had been deployed on Sunday to search for the black boxes.
"This [submarine] moved today in the direction of the plane crash because we are working hard to retrieve the two boxes, which are the black boxes," he said.
Egypt said its navy had found human remains, wreckage and the personal belongings of passengers floating in the Mediterranean about 290 km north of Alexandria but the search for the black box recorders was continuing.
* Reuters and Agence-France Presse
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