Photo: AP

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior Egyptian forensics official told the Associated Press that human remains recovered from the wreckage of EgyptAir Flight 804 suggest that there had been an explosion on board the plane: “The logical explanation is that an explosion brought it down.”

All 66 people on board the flight last Thursday from Paris to Cairo were killed; some of their remains were brought to Cairo for inspection. The remains recovered thus far are “no larger than the size of a hand,” the official said. From the AP:

All 80 pieces that have been brought to Cairo so far are small. “There isn’t even a whole body part, like an arm or a head,” said the official, adding that one piece was the left part of a head.

“But I cannot say what caused the blast,” he said. He did not say whether traces of explosives were found on the human remains retrieved so far.

The expert’s comments mark a new dramatic twist surrounding last week’s crash, which still remains a mystery. The plane’s black boxes have yet to be found and photographs of retrieved debris published by the Egyptian military over the weekend were not charred and appear to show no signs of fire.

According to the Washington Post, French investigators have said that automated messages sent from the plane just before the crash indicated that smoke had been detected on board, near the nose of the plane and in one of the bathrooms.