Friends and relatives of passengers on EgyptAir flight MS804 react at Cairo aurport
Friends and relatives of passengers on EgyptAir flight MS804 react at Cairo aurportReuters

New evidence shows EgyptAir Flight MS804, which crashed into the Mediterranean in May 2016, may have crashed as a result of an iPhone overheating in the cockpit.

The Airbus A320 plane, which was headed from Paris to Cairo, did not send a distress signal before it went down.

CCTV records from the gate at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris show EgyptAir co-pilot Mohamed Mamdouh Ahmed Assem leaving his Apple iPhone 6S and iPad mini next to four bottles of perfume atop the cockpit's instrument panel just before takeoff.

According to the Le Parisien newspaper, French investigators say there is a "troubling parallel" between where the fire started and where the items were placed on the glare-shield.

Though terrorism has not yet been ruled out, authorities say it's unlikely the co-pilot had terrorist motives, since nothing unusual was discovered about the co-pilot prior to flight takeoff. In addition, the French investigators' theory would seemingly only relate to the absence of distress signals and alarms before the flight went down; the phone and tablet would not have caused the fire itself.

It's also not clear if the items were moved after the flight took off or not.

The plane's black boxes indicate it broke up in mid-air after fire alerts were sounded and smoke was detected on the flight deck.

Former pilot and Flight International Magazine Operations and Safety Editor David Learmount told the Daily Telegraph, "Firstly, pilots don't leave objects on the dashboard because they know the they will end up in their lap when they take off or on the floor and they'll get airborne in turbulence and could jam the controls.

"Also, a phone bursting into flames just below the windscreen is a fairly spectacular thing to take place on a flight, and they would have told somebody on the ground. Nobody has mentioned this. But the key point is while there were warnings about the window heating systems, there were also smoke alarms in the toilet and avionics bay under the floor.

"How would the fire have got under there? It doesn't make sense," he concluded.

France's air accident authority, the BEA, said it is "not possible at this stage to draw any conclusions on the origin of the accident."

Meanwhile, Egypt claims explosives were found on the hands of passengers - though this has not been absolutely proven.

An Apple spokesman said, "We haven’t been contacted by GTA or any authority investigating this tragic event. We have not seen the report but we understand there is no evidence to link this event to Apple products. If investigators have questions for us, we would of course assist in any way we can.

"We rigorously test our products to ensure they meet or exceed international safety standards."

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Apple Inc. responded to this article with the following background information:

There is no new evidence beyond the claims in Le Parisien. We understand they saw an old report by the Gendarmerie des Transports Aeriens (GTA), which explored a range of hypotheses, but which has not been taken forward.

It is important to note the French investigators themselves have not said anything.

The report points to a “troubling parallel” with CCTV from the boarding gate when the plane was stationery and the ACARS alerts, the first of which came from the windows on the co-pilot’s side of the cockpit.

However, experts say these wouldn’t necessarily to triggered in sequence.

It is therefore incorrect to say the fire broke out in the cockpit as there is no evidence for that. And investigators have not identified the source of the fire.