One of the people on board the EgyptAir flight almost did not make the trip after losing his passport last week, his friends told media in France.

Pascal Hess, 51, was one of the 15 French passengers on board flight MS804 when it crashed into the Mediterranean.

He was close to cancelling his ticket after losing his passport, friends said, only for a neighbour to find it on the street days later.

The amateur photographer was remembered as "charming and endearing".

Hess was well-known as an amateur photographer in his hometown of Evreux, in the northern French region of Normandy.

Who were the victims of MS804?

La Depeche d'Evreux, a weekly newspaper, said on its Facebook page that Hess had been travelling to Egypt to spend time with his friend from Evreux, who works as a diving instructor in a Red Sea resort.

Hess had not slept for three days last week due to worry caused by the loss of his passport, La Depeche d'Evreux and Le Parisien newspaper reported.

"It's strange, but he wasn't feeling this trip at all," one friend told Le Parisien (in French). "It's as though he had a premonition."

Hess had a particular interest in photographing rock bands, and worked as a photographer for a large annual rock festival in Evreux, Le Rock Dans Tous Ses Etats (Rock in all its states).

The event's press officer, Nadine Simoni, described Mr Hess for Ouest-France newspaper as a "discreet, charming, polite and endearing" man.

In a 2010 interview uploaded to YouTube, Mr Hess spoke of his passion for his work.

"I don't follow the concert," he said. "I follow everyone's individual gestures, their little particularities - the singing, the guitar-playing, the drums. And if you follow the same band, you learn to become at one with them."