Search teams have detected a radio signal from an emergency locator transmitter (ELT) that was in the tail end of EgyptAir Flight MS804 - the Paris to Cairo flight that plunged into the Mediterranean Sea on 19 May.

Captain Ayman al-Moqadem of the Egyptian military told the state-run newspaper al-Ahram that the signal narrows the search radius for the aircraft's fuselage to about three miles.  Search teams are working against the clock to find the two flight recorders that would offer vital clues on the fate of flight 804, because the signals that help pinpoint the debris in deep water stop after about 30 days.  The ELT radio signal is separate from the underwater locator beacons (ULB) or "pingers" attached to the black box flight recorders, which send out acoustic rather than radio signals and are designed to be more easily detected underwater.

France's BEA air crash investigation agency said the naval survey vessel Laplace had left Corsica and was heading towards the search zone north of the Egyptian port of Alexandria.  Egypt has its own submarines looking for the missing airplane, but the sea floor is deep and mountainous in the presumed crash area.

Egyptian searchers have found small pieces of debris and a few human remains in the Mediterranean Sea, thus far.  They are the only clues as to what happened aboard the ill-fated Airbus A320.