France to help search for missing EgyptAir plane: Foreign Minister

By Reuters May 18, 2016 | 11:31 pm PT

People wait outside the international arrivals terminal at Cairo Airport, Egypt May 19, 2016. Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

France plans to send boats and planes to help search for an EgyptAir aircraft that went missing en route from Paris to Cairo with 15 French citizens aboard, Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Thursday.

"Everything must be done to find the plane, that's why we're in contact with the Egyptian authorities...we are mobilising and ready to send our military means, planes and boats, to search for this plane," Ayrault told reporters after a ministerial meeting with French President Francois Hollande.

Transport Minister Alain Vidalies added that there was no cargo on board the Airbus A320 passenger jet.