Travel stocks hit after Egypt-bound flight goes missing, crash presumed

19th May 2016 08:45

(ShareCast News) - EgyptAir Paris to Cairo flight MS804 disappeared from air-traffic controllers's radar screens shortly after the aircraft entered the latter Mediterranean country's airspace early on Thursday morning, with international authorities loathe to jump to any conclusions before an investigation was conducted.However, the crash and disappearance of the flight was confirmed by French officials as Egyptian and Greek Navy vessels raced to the last-known location of the airplane.Speaking on Thursday, French president Francois Hollande said: "we have a duty to know everything about the causes of what happened. No hypothesis should be ruled out. Everything should be put at the disposal of the Greek and Egyptian authorities so that we can liaise with them. We have to send them ships and planes to find where the plane crashed, and to do whatever we can to collect the debris. That will allow us to find the truth."It could be a terrorist hypothesis but at this stage we should express our solidarity to the families and to find out the cause of the catastrophe."The civilian passenger flight had been carrying 66 people on board.Flight MS804 had just entered Egyptian airspace near the coast of the Greek island of Karpathos, in the south-eastern Aegean Sea, AFP said citing a Greek airport official. Reports showing the flight path appeared to indicate it had been following its normal route over the Eastern Mediterranean as it headed towards the Egyptian capital.As of 08:40 BST Egyptian officials could only confirm the possibility that the plane had crashed as it had not yet landed at local airports, the Associated Press reported earlier in the day.Shares in the main London-listed Travel&Tourism outfits took a beating as a result, given Egypt's importance as a tourist destination for many of their clients."At 4:26am , rescue teams affiliated with the Egyptian armed forces have received an SOS message from the emergency unit of the missing plane," EgyptAir said in a tweet, Al-Jazeera reported.However, the Egyptian army later reportedly denied having detected a distress signal from the missing plane.According to Egypt's transportation minister, it was too early to say the presumed crash had been the result of an "accident", Bloomberg reported.Stock in FTSE 100 listed TUI was down 3.97% to 492p. Over on the second tier index, Thomas Cook Group wasoff by 15.20% to 75.9p and Saga by another 3.64% to 206.36p.The DJ Stoxx 600 Travel&Leisure sector index was retreating 0.92% to 238.87.