While French prosecutors have said that terrorism could not be ruled out and that it appears to be a more likely cause than a technical issue, there has been no official determination as to what happened to the plane. The absence of a distress call suggests that whatever sent the aircraft plummeting into the Mediterranean was both sudden and brief, officials said.
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has not yet issued a statement on the crash.
The EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo with 66 passengers and crew on board crashed in the Mediterranean Sea off the Greek island of Crete early Thursday morning, Egyptian and Greek officials said. No one has claimed responsibility for the crash.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said it was too early to say whether a technical problem or a terror attack caused the plane to crash. "We cannot rule anything out," he told reporters at Cairo airport.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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