The investigation committee for the EgyptAir plane crash yesterday said that arrangements are being made to transport debris found on an Israeli beach to Cairo. It added that the technical committee will confirm whether the pieces found are from the plane that crashed in May on its way to Egypt. The Airbus A320 from Paris to Cairo plunged into the eastern Mediterranean on May 19. All 66 people on board were killed and the cause of the crash remains unknown.

Israeli authorities announced that it had found “parts of an airplane” on the seashore in Netanya, a Mediterranean resort town about 30 kilometres north of Tel Aviv.

If the committee is able to verify that the wreckage is part of the doomed plane, the debris will help explain why the plane crashed. According to sources from the committee, the John Lethbridge vessel that the Egyptian government has hired to participate in search operations in the Mediterranean will continue to scan the bed of the Mediterranean Sea to make sure that there are no human remains at the site of the crash.

EgyptAir announced that it has agreed with insurance companies to pay the legal heirs of the victims of the EgyptAir flight an initial compensation sum of $25,000. The company also launched a website that aims to provide another way for it to communicate with the families of the victims and to facilitate communication with them in the case of any new developments regarding the crash and the investigation into it.

Investigation committee sources announced last month that the two black boxes of the doomed EgyptAir plane were recovered and that intensive testing on the contents of the second black box at the French aviation safety agency showed that the memory units of the second box were not damaged. Several officials consider this to increase the chances of unravelling the causes of the crash.