EgyptAir MS804 flight crash caused by cockpit fire, say French investigators: The EgyptAir flight MS804, which crashed in 2016 on route from Paris to Cairo killing all 66 passengers, was likely caused by a fire in the cockpit, France’s Bureau of Investigations and Analysis agency (BEA) said in a press release on Friday. The plane’s black boxes had recorded the pilots talking about afire on board; automated satellite messages sent by the plane showed smoke in the bathrooms and the avionics bay, which holds the plane’s computers, French investigators said. The report contradicts earlier findings by Egyptian authorities that traces of explosives were found on human remains. Reuters called the BEA statement a “rare criticism of another country’s crash probe.” The story topped coverage on Egypt by the foreign press with pickups from Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal.

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