(Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
• Stranded Brits could face ten day delay to get home, officials say – latest news
Ayman el-Mokkadem said: “Initial observations… do not allow for identifying the origin of the in-flight break-up” of the Airbus A-321 last Saturday 23 minutes and 14 seconds after it took off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
He said: “A noise was heard in the last second of the recording by the cockpit voice recorder” and “a spectral analysis will be done to determine the origin of this noise”.
When answering a question about what the sound represented he said: “The sound is not the only evidence – we need to have a lot of evidence to indicate that something specific happened.
“All the scenarios are open, it could be a fatigue at the plane body, or an explosion of something…”
The British government and US officials have said intelligence suggests the plane was downed by a bomb.
The Islamic State group has claimed that it brought down the plane but did not provide any proof.