An Egyptian man accused of hijacking a plane and diverting it to Cyprus has been sent back from the Mediterranean island to his homeland after a two-year extradition battle, officials said Sunday.

The number of air accidents declined further in 2016, but more of them resulted in fatalities than in the previous year, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Friday.

Egypt began on Saturday handing over to their families the bodies of those who died when EgyptAir flight MS804 crashed into the Mediterranean in May with the loss of 66 passengers and crew, the state news agency MENA reported.

An EgyptAir flight that crashed into the Mediterranean in May likely broke up in midair after a fire erupted in or near the cockpit, the New York Times reported Friday.

The word "fire" is heard on the cockpit voice recorder of EgyptAir 804 before the plane crashed into the Mediterranean in May, an Egyptian-led investigative committee said Saturday.

EgyptAir said Monday advance compensation payments of $25,000 will be offered to families of the 66 people killed when one of its planes crashed into the Mediterranean last month.

Egyptian aviation investigators will finish on Monday repairing memory units from the black box recorders of an EgyptAir flight that crashed into the Mediterranean last month, a senior investigation official said.

Investigators have begun analysing the two severely damaged black boxes from EgyptAir flight MS804 as they seek to explain why the plane plunged into the sea, killing all 66 people on board.

Search teams on Friday recovered the second flight recorder of an EgyptAir plane from the bottom of the Mediterranean that could prove vital in establishing the cause of the unexplained crash.

The cockpit voice recorder from EgyptAir flight MS804 has been retrieved by search teams in a breakthrough for investigators seeking to explain what caused the plane to crash into the sea killing all 66 people on board.

The black boxes from an EgyptAir jet that crashed in the Mediterranean last month will continue emitting a signal from beneath the sea until June 24, a statement from the Egyptian investigation committee said.

An EgyptAir passenger plane en route from Cairo to Beijing was forced to make an emergency landing in Uzbekistan on Wednesday after receiving a security threat that the airline said turned out to be a hoax.