EgyptAir Accident Highlights Its Troubled Past

03:40

May 19, 2016

Police escort passengers off the Egyptair Boeing 777 flight from Cairo that was forced to land at Glasgow Prestwick airport in Scotland on June 15, 2013 en route to JFK airport in New York after an onboard incident. Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) on June 15 escorted an Egyptair plane bound for New York to a Scottish airport following an onboard incident, the Ministry of Defence said. The Boeing 777 was travelling between Cairo and New York when a passenger alerted plane crew that she had found a note reading "I'll set this plane on fire" in the toilet. The message was scrawled in pencil on a napkin and was found by BBC New York producer Nada Tawfik. (Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images)

The disappearance of EgyptAir flight MS 804 en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people on board comes after a number of deadly incidents for the airline. On March 29, an Egypt Air flight was hijacked by a passenger who said he was wearing an explosives belt, which turned out to be a fake. There was also an EgyptAir crash in 1999 during a flight from New York to Cairo that killed all 217 people on board, which may have deliberately been caused by its pilots, and another accident in 2002 involving an EgyptAir flight near Tunis that killed 14 passengers out of 62 on board.

Here & Now's Robin Young speaks with business journalist Ali Velshi.

Guest

Ali Velshi, global affairs and economics journalist based in New York. He tweets @AliVelshi.

This segment aired on May 19, 2016.