Doesn't anyone else think it's strange that both Egypt and France could rule out terrorism within a matter of hours after the plane crashed.....killing all 148 aboard...and before ANY tests had been taken of ANY of the wreckage....?????
Red Sea plane crash kills 148, Egypt and France rule out terrorism
sg.news.yahoo.com
Sunday January 4, 05:20 AM
Red Sea plane crash kills 148, Egypt and France rule out terrorism
An Egyptian charter plane carrying mainly French tourists plunged into the Red Sea shortly after take-off from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 148 people on board.
The crash, which France said had killed entire families, came as the United States and Britain were on a heightened air security alert for fear that an airliner could be used for a September 11-style terror attack.
But both French and Egyptian officials said there was nothing to indicate that the loss of the Flash Airlines Boeing 737 was anything but an accident.
"The incident is absolutely not the result of a terrorist act, but is linked to a technical failure of the plane," said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher.
By late evening, rescue workers had recovered remains of the bodies of six people, according to French junior foreign minister Renaud Muselier, who was dispatched to Egypt by President Jacques Chirac.
Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Ahmed Shafik said rescue workers had also recovered bits of plane wreckage, while local television showed pictures of debris floating in the sea, including tattered bright yellow life jackets.
Flight 604 to Paris via Cairo disappeared from radar screens at 4:44 am (0244 GMT), minutes after taking off from the popular resort on the southern tip of the Sinai desert.
"The plane had a problem at take-off and then tried to turn around, and it was at that moment that it apparently crashed," junior French transport minister Dominique Bussereau said, adding that "entire families" had been killed.
Radar readings showed that the doomed charter flight climbed to 5,000 feet after take-off and made a planned left turn before engaging in an unusual manoeuvre and plunging into the sea, Shafik said.
"The take-off was perfectly correct. It climbed to 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) and then turned left, and this turn was programmed. When turning, something happened," he told reporters.
"It went back on a straight line at the same level, with a bit of shaking. Then it made a right turn which was not programmed. And here another problem happened. After 17 seconds it hit the sea," Shafik said.
Civil aviation officials said there were 133 French tourists on board, as well as one Japanese and a Moroccan, both women. The remainder comprised the Egyptian crew flying the plane and a relief crew.
One of the victims was the crew's chief flight attendant, Nermin Mohammed, who was pregnant and who had married just six months ago, according to her mother, who joined other sobbing relatives at Cairo airport.
A senior police officer in Sharm el-Sheikh told AFP that large high-seas patrol boats equipped with powerful lights were expected to continue search operations into the night.
Smaller boats would resume the search Sunday morning, he said.
The plane had arrived in Sharm with Italian tourists on board and took off an hour later. It had been due to make a short refuelling stop in Cairo before continuing to Paris.
It was the third crash on the African continent of a Boeing 737 in less than nine months and came after an older Boeing 727 plunged into the sea after take-off in the tiny West African state of Benin on December 25, killing 139 people, many of them Lebanese.
Sharm el-Sheikh, tucked between the rugged mountains of the Sinai desert and the clear waters of the Red Sea is a glitzy resort offering five-star-hotels, casinos, golf courses and some of the world's best diving.
It is frequently used by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as the venue for Middle East summits, and he had been due to hold talks Saturday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is holidaying there.
In other recent crashes involving Boeing 737s in Africa, all but one of 103 people aboard an Air Algerie plane died when it crashed on taking off from the Sahara desert town of Tamanrasset in southern Algeria last March.
In July, a Sudanese 737 crashed near Sudan's Red Sea coast, leaving a little boy as the sole survivor among the 116 passengers and crew aboard.
The Boeing 737 is the world's most widely-used passenger jet and has a generally good safety record.
This was the third serious accident involving an Egyptian plane in the past few years, but the first involving Flash, which operated two of the 737-300 twin-engined jets, both manufactured in 1993, according to its website.
On May 7, 2002, an EgyptAir Boeing 737 crashed outside Tunis, killing 14 people and injuring 48 others.
On October 31, 1999, an EgyptAir Boeing 767 crashed off the US Atlantic coast, killing all 217 people on board. Egypt denies US assertions it was deliberately caused by the co-pilot. |
