Doug Stanglin

USA TODAY

Debris found Thursday in the Mediterranean Sea was not from an EgyptAir flight that vanished from radar en route from Paris to Cairo early Thursday, an airline official said.

Ahmed Adel, EgyptAir vice chairman, told CNN Thursday that a statement he made earlier to the network was not accurate.

"We stand corrected on finding the wreckage because what we identified is not a part of our plane," Adel told the news organization. "So the search and rescue is still going on."

Adel's statement added to the mounting questions as to what happened to the Airbus 320 that was carrying 56 passengers and 10 crew members, and turned global attention back to the prospect of potential terrorism.

Earlier, Greek officials disputed Egypt's claim that Greek authorities found floating wreckage, including two life vests, from an EgyptAir flight carrying 66 people that crashed into the Mediterranean early Thursday en route from Paris to Cairo.

EgyptAir said the Egyptian foreign ministry confirmed in a letter to the Cairo government that Greek searchers found the debris near the Greek island of Karpathos. But within an hour of that report, Athanassios Binis, head of Greece’s Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board, told state ERT TV that “an assessment of the finds showed that they do not belong to an aircraft.”

Binis said the determination was confirmed by Egyptian authorities, according to the Associated Press. There was no immediate response or clarification from EgyptAir.

Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said the Airbus A320 made two sharp turns then suddenly lost altitude before vanishing from radar 174 miles off the Egyptian coast. “It turned 90 degrees left and then a 360-degree turn toward the right, dropping from 38,000 to 15,000 feet and then it was lost at about 10,000 feet,” he said.

Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi said the possibility of a terror attack as the cause of the crash of flight MS804 is "higher than that of a technical error,” Egypt's state-run newspaper Al-Ahram reported.

Adding to Thursday's confusion, unnamed officials told Reuters that the United States saw no signs of an explosion as it reviewed imagery.

EgyptAir crash comes amid high terror alerts in both France and Egypt

French President François Hollande earlier confirmed the disappearance of the airliner but said it was too early to determine the cause of the crash.

The plane vanished shortly after entering Egyptian airspace. Greek civil aviation authorities said all appeared fine with the flight until air traffic controllers were preparing to hand it over to their Egyptian counterparts. The pilot did not respond to their calls, and the aircraft then disappeared from radar.

About 40 minutes before contact with the plane was lost, Greek air traffic controllers said the pilot was in good spirits and reported no problems as he flew over the Greek island of Kea, according to a statement by the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority.

Al-Ahram identified the pilot as Captain Mohamed Shokeir. The airline said he had 6,275 hours of flying experience, including 2,101 hours on the A320 aircraft used in the flight.

The French military said a Falcon surveillance jet monitoring the Mediterranean for migrants was diverted to help in the Egypt-led search effort for the airliner. Greece's defense ministry also mobilized a search-and-rescue operation. U.S. Commander Sixth Fleet is working to provide U.S. Navy P-3 Orion support, according to the U.S. Navy.

EgyptAir operated an aircraft considered among the safest in the industry

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Obama received "multiple updates" on the missing plane from his homeland security and counterterrorism team and asked to be kept apprised of developments.

White House: It's too soon to know fate of Egyptian airliner

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump weighed in on the crash, calling it "yet another terrorist attack." In a Twitter post Thursday, Trump pointed to the incident, asking "when will we get tough, smart and vigilant? Great hate and sickness!"

FBI Director James Comey told reporters during a visit to the Chicago field office that U.S. officials don't have any evidence at this point that confirms the plane was brought down in a terrorist attack. "We don't know exactly what this is yet," Comey said.

EgyptAir flight missing: What we know now

At Charles De Gaulle's Terminal 1, Paula Alina checked boarding passes Thursday afternoon, including those for EgyptAir flight MS800 bound for Cairo. Since the Paris terrorist attacks last year, Alina said, she has seen many people boarding flights in tears because they're afraid of a terror attack onboard.

"It is heartbreaking," she said. "I can barely speak. I feel tired and confused." As for those boarding the next plane to Cairo, Alina said, "I feel afraid for them."

But she said the ground staff puts on a brave face. "I don't speak to them otherwise I would show them that we are worried for them," Alina said.

In Cairo, Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi convened an emergency meeting of the National Security Council, the country’s highest security body. The council includes the prime minister and the defense, foreign and interior ministers, in addition to the chiefs of the intelligence agencies.

Deadliest air disasters in recent world history

El-Sissi and Hollande spoke on the phone and agreed to “closely cooperate to establish as soon as possible the circumstances” surrounding the incident, according to a statement issued in Paris.

Sherif Ismail, Egypt's prime minister, told reporters at Cairo airport that it was also too early to draw any conclusions about what caused the plane's disappearance. “We cannot rule anything out,” he said. He also said there was no "distress call."

Aircraft manufacturer Airbus said in a statement that it "regrets to confirm the loss of an Egyptair A320, flight ‪#‎MS804‬." Airbus said EgyptAir took delivery of the plane in November 2003 and that it had accumulated approximately 48,000 flight hours.

Details on passengers emerge

EgyptAir said the passengers included:

• 30 Egyptians

• 15 French

• 2 Iraqis

• One each from Sudan, Chad, Portugal, Algeria, Canada, Great Britain, Belgium, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

People from a dozen countries, but no Americans, aboard missing Egypt Air flight

No Americans were reported to be aboard the plane.

One of the victims was Egyptian-born Ahmed Helal, a plant manager at Procter & Gamble's Amiens, France, manufacturing facility, the company said. Helal spent two years in Cincinnati from 2012 to 2014 as an associate operations director for single dose unit detergents as P&G first launched Tide Pods, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Relatives of passengers aboard the missing flight arrived at Cairo airport and at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, where crisis centers were set up. The Associated Press reported that a man and a woman, identified by airport staff as relatives of the flight’s passengers, sat at an information desk near the EgyptAir counter at Charles De Gaulle. The woman sobbed, holding her face in a handkerchief.

In Cairo, family members of passengers and crew sat in the modest restaurant at the Le Passage hotel just beside Cairo Airport. Paramedics and doctors were on standby in an adjacent alcove ready to assist grief-stricken survivors.

"Only God knows what happened to them," said Mohammed Diab, an uncle of one of the air marshals on the ill-fated jet.

"All they have told us is the plane is missing," said the tearful 72-year-old, even as Egyptian TV broadcasted video of wreckage thought to be from the downed plane floating in the Mediterranean. "He had been working for EgyptAir for five years and he loved his job," Diab said of his 25-year-old nephew.

EgyptAir operates from a hub at Cairo International Airport and is based in Heliopolis, Egypt. It offers passenger and freight services to more than 75 destinations.

In 1999, tragedy for another EgyptAir flight

In March, EgyptAir Flight 181 en route to Cyprus was hijacked by a passenger claiming to be wearing a suicide belt. The hijacker surrendered at Larnaca International Airport in Cyprus and all passengers were released safely. No one was hurt in the incident, which Cypriot authorities said was not terrorism related.

A Russian passenger plane crashed in Egypt's Sinai peninsula in October, killing all 224 people on board. Moscow said it was brought down by an explosive device, and a local branch of the Islamic State claimed responsibility.

Contributing: Jacob Wirtschafter in Cairo; Nikolia Apostolu from Lesbos, Greece; Maya Vidon in Paris; Melanie Eversley, Gregory Korte in Washington.