CAIRO, May 19. /TASS/. Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry confirmed in a statement on Thursday that A320 passenger jet of EgypAir airline en route from Paris to Cairo has crashed.

Earlier on Thursday the ministry said an SOS message was sent out from the missing jet.

"The military received an SOS message from the plane emergency devices," it said.

According to latest reports, there were 56 passengers from 12 countries and 10 crew members onboard.

The plane was expected to land in the Egyptian capital at 3.05 a.m. local time. The jet disappeared from radars some 280 kilometers from the Egyptian coast. The military received an SOS message from the plane’s emergency devices at 04.26 a.m. local time (0226 GMT).

This is the second major incident with Egypt’s flag carrier airline of late. On March 29, an Egyptian man hijacked EgyptAir’s A320 passenger plane en route from Alexandria to Cairo. He demanded to divert to Larnaca threatening to bomb the plane. There were 56 passengers and eight crew members onboard. Several hours later, the hijacker freed several foreigners and the Egyptian crew and surrendered to police of Cyprus. No one was injured in the incident.