EgyptAir plane
EgyptAir planeReuters

The search for the EgyptAir plane which crashed last week killing all 66 people on board has narrowed to a five-kilometer-wide area in the Mediterranean Sea, based on signals from the craft's emergency beacon, Egypt's chief investigator said Friday, according to The Associated Press.

The chief investigator, Ayman al-Moqadem, said Airbus had given Egyptian authorities information on the Emergency Locator Transmitter, or ELT, from the doomed aircraft.

An official from the Egyptian investigation team on Friday clarified that the beacon information was from the day of the crash, May 19, and that no new signal had been found. An Airbus official said he was unaware of any ELT received or given to the Egyptians.

Both officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

International air and naval teams discovered debris of the plane last Friday, 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Alexandria. Among the wreckage were personal belongings of passengers and crew. 

Reports this week suggested that human remains retrieved following the crash indicate that the plane suffered an explosion before crashing.

Those reports cited Egyptian investigators, but Cairo later denied there was evidence of an explosion on the flight.

It has also been confirmed that the jet did not show technical problems before taking off from Paris, leaving the cause of the crash unknown.

Speculation remains high that the crash was the result of terrorism, based on previous threats to the plane, the proximity of hundreds of maintenance workers to the plane at four high-risk airports in the 48 hours before the crash, and an odd trajectory recorded on the flight - as well as the lack of emergency warnings before the plane was spotted with a flash and a fireball. 

Ships and planes from Egypt, Greece, France, the United States and other nations have been searching the Mediterranean north of the Egyptian port of Alexandria for the jet's voice and flight data recorders, as well as more bodies and parts of the aircraft.

Egypt's civil aviation minister Sherif Fathi has said he believes terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure or some other catastrophic event, but no hard evidence has emerged on the cause, and no terrorist group has claimed to have downed the jet.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)