Egypt says traces of explosives found on some EgyptAir crash victims

The Egyptian Aviation Investigation Committee on Thursday said it found traces of explosives on the remains of victims from EgyptAir Flight MS804, which crashed in the Mediterranean Sea in May.

A criminal investigation will now begin into the crash that killed all 66 people on board, Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry said. The EgyptAir crash came just seven months after a Russian passenger plane was blown up over the Sinai Peninsula in an attack claimed by Daesh.

French investigators earlier said that they had found trace levels of the explosive material TNT on the plane's debris but were prevented from further examining it, according to a report in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. Egyptian officials denied that claim.

Audio from the flight recorder of the downed aircraft mentions a fire on board in its final moments, and an earlier analysis of the plane's flight data recorder showed there had been smoke in the lavatory and avionics bay.