Search teams looking for the flight recorders of the EgyptAir plane have picked up a radio signal from an emergency locator transmitter, Egyptian investigators say.
This could help narrow the search area for the “black boxes” to a 5-km radius in the Mediterranean Sea.
A deepwater operation will start in the coming days, French officials said, BBC reported.
All 66 people on board Flight MS804 were killed when the plane disappeared not far from its destination on 19 May.
The Airbus A320 was flying overnight from Paris to Cairo when it vanished from Greek and Egyptian radar screens, apparently without having sent a distress call.
The signal detected was from a device situated in the rear of the cabin on the plane, which transmits its location, Egypt’s chief investigator, Ayman al-Moqadem, said.
This part of the fuselage is near the tail, where the “black boxes” are located. But the signals detected are different from those emitted by the flight recorders.
France’s BEA air safety agency said a French naval ship specialized in underwater searches would join the operation to find the recorders. On Thursday, hundreds of people gathered in Cairo for a candlelit vigil for the victims of the crash.
Among those on board MS804 were 30 Egyptians, 15 French citizens, two Iraqis, two Canadians and citizens from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. They included a boy and two babies as well as seven crew and three security staff.
Debris from the plane has been recovered from the sea, some 290 km north of the Egyptian port city of Alexandria.
Egypt’s president has said that “all scenarios are possible”, but Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy said last Friday that a terrorist attack was more likely than a technical failure.
