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Egyptian officials probing the crash of EgyptAir Flight 804 said Monday the plane veered off course before plunging into the sea, suggesting an abrupt in-flight explosion didn't bring down the aircraft.

The Airbus Group SE A320 plane bound for Cairo from Paris deviated from its course while flying at 37,000 feet, first turning left before rolling to the right and completing a full circle, investigators said in their latest update into the May 19 crash that killed all 66 people onboard.

The finding confirms statements initially made by Greek officials about the last seconds of flight but initially rejected by Egyptian authorities, who suggested contact was lost more abruptly. Investigators have spent the past few days going over all available radar information to reconcile the conflicting theses.

The Egyptian finding does little to explain why the plane crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. No cause has been ruled out, Egyptian officials have said, including potential hostile action.

The radar findings suggest, though, that there wasn't a sudden explosion that tore the plane apart midair.

The Airbus A320 broadcast a number of fault messages before all contact was lost, indicating possible smoke in the nose of the plane, including a critical electronic-equipment hub beneath the cockpit. The messages alone haven't proved sufficient to determine a likely cause for the crash, investigators have said. That has added urgency to recovering the plane's so-called black boxes that store technical data as well as conversations in the cockpit.

Egypt also said it has invited the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board to participate in the investigation. U.S. crash investigators have been eager to assist in the crash probe. A technical expert from the maker of the plane's so-called black boxes, Honeywell International Inc., also has been invited to join, Egypt said. French air-accident investigators have been assisting the probe almost from the start.

The cockpit voice and flight-data recorder typically provide the best clues to why an aircraft crashed.

Investigators are still trying to pinpoint the exact location of the Airbus A320's data-storage units almost two weeks after a French vessel first detected a signal from a beacon belonging to one of the black boxes.

Egyptian officials said a second vessel to aid the hunt has arrived in the search zone. The John Lethbridge, belonging to Deep Ocean Search Ltd., is equipped with a scanning sensor that could allow investigators to pinpoint the exact location of the main body of the plane and is also carrying equipment to eventually recover the black boxes.

Investigators are in a race against time. The beacons on the black boxes are required to last for 30 days, though they can remain active for longer.

Write to Robert Wall at robert.wall@wsj.com and Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 13, 2016 17:45 ET (21:45 GMT)

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