EgyptAir Says More Wreckage Found In Plane Crash

CAIRO (CBSNewYork/AP) -- An EgyptAir official said more wreckage of the missing plane has been found, including body parts, luggage and passengers' seats.

A statement by the Civil Aviation Ministry quotes the unnamed official from EgyptAir as saying that the Egyptian armed forces on Friday retrieved more plane wreckage. The official says the search continues.

Earlier in the day, the Egyptian army said that wreckage was found 180 miles north of the port city Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast. In a statement on social media, officials said jets and naval vessels assisting in the search found passengers' belongings and parts of the plane's fuselage.

Greece's defense minister also said Greek authorities received notification that Egyptian authorities had spotted a body part, two seats and suitcases during their search.

Meanwhile, the European Space Agency said one of its satellites discovered a possible oil slick in the same area of the Mediterranean Sea.

The agency said its Sentinel-1A radar satellite detected the 1.2-mile-long slick about 25 miles southeast of the plane's last known location, but cautioned that there was no guarantee the slick was from the missing aircraft.

EgyptAir issued a statement on its website saying it was informed that debris from the flight had been found.

"We extend our deepest sympathies to those affected and have engaged international emergency support group Kenyon to assist with care for those touched by this tragedy," the airline said.

On Thursday, airline officials were forced to retract claims that items, including life jackets, that were found near the Greek island of Karpathos belonged to the doomed flight.

International teams are now racing to find the data recorder that will help provide investigators answers as to why the plane went down, CBS2's Janelle Burrell reported.

The Airbus 320, traveling from Paris to Cairo, lost contact at 2.45 a.m. local time Thursday morning. A Greek defense minister said the plane veered wildly in the air before crashing into the Mediterranean Sea.

There were 66 people aboard the flight.

The Egyptian military says that no distress call was received from the pilot. The country's aviation minister Sherif Fathi said the likelihood the plane was brought down by a terror attack is "higher than the possibility of a technical failure.''

There has been no credible claim of responsibility from terrorist organizations, CBS News reported.

"Modern planes with experienced crews and in good mechanical conditions don't just fall from the sky," said John Miller, the NYPD's deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter-terrorism.

Experts say everyone who had access to the aircraft in recent days will be questioned and the history of all of the people on board will be thoroughly checked.

"Is there anybody on that flight with a link to a terrorist organization, number one, and number two, is there anything going on right now within terrorists organizations are non-public where they are congratulating each other," said former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell. "That's one of the ways of seeing who is responsible."

The investigation will also be scrutinizing the physical evidence collected.

"Whether there are traces of explosives or something that would indicate something non-mechanical," Miller said.

Victims' relatives gathered at a mosque in Cairo on Friday for a prayer service, CBS2's Jonathan Vigliotti reported.

"This is very hard for the family," said one man whose cousin was on the flight.

The challenge for crews is to find those flight data and cockpit voice recorders as soon as they can before they erode in the salt water.

The water is as deep as 10,000 feet in the area, but the data recorders can be detected in water twice that deep.

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