EgyptAir's chairman on Thursday denied media reports that the airliner which crashed into the Mediterranean in May had sent a series of technical warnings during flight in the 24 hours before it disappeared from radar screens.

"For me it is not true," Safwat Musallam said on the sidelines of the Iata annual meeting in Dublin when asked about the French media reports.

Musallam said flight MS804 had not experienced any maintenance issues before departure and that the plane, an Airbus A320 was "normal".

"We fully trust the aircraft and the pilot," he said.

The search zone for the crashed EgyptAir jet has been narrowed to 2 km (1.24 miles) from 5 km after a French warship picked up a signal from one of the aircraft's black boxes, an Egyptian source on the investigation committee said on Thursday. - Reuters