Official: Human remains suggest explosion brought down EgyptAir plane

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Human remains recovered from the crash site of EgyptAir Flight 804 showed burn marks and were "very tiny," suggesting an explosion brought down the plane, a senior Egyptian forensics official told the Associated Press Tuesday.

The official, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity, claimed to have personally examined the remains of some of the plane's 66 passengers and crew at a Cairo morgue. He said all 80 pieces brought to Cairo so far are small and that "there isn't even a whole body part, like an arm or a head."

He added that at least one part of an arm had signs of burns -- an indication it might have "belonged to a passenger sitting next to the explosion."

The Airbus A320 crashed into the eastern Mediterranean Sea early Thursday morning near the end of a fight from Paris to Cairo. Egyptian authorities said they believed terrorism was a more likely explanation than equipment failure, but no hard evidence of either has emerged.

An independent Cairo newspaper, al-Watan, quoted an unnamed forensics official Tuesday as saying the plane blew up in midair, but that it was unclear whether the blast was caused by the an explosive device or something else. The official also said the remains retrieved so far are "no larger than the size of a hand."

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