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Little more info, the day before the crash, the plane was running nearly all day long without any overnight time, just the time between flights. It ran from Sharm to Turin, back to Sharm, then to Venice, to Cairo, and back to Sharm at 330 in the morning, with one hour turn around before its flight to Cairo then Paris DeGualle. Also read on an aviation board, but not confirmed yet, that Flash Air had been barred by Swiss officials from any operations in Switzerland, due to their poor safety record.

I'll do some more digging.

More info from a poster on Airliners.net (unknown credibility):

According to the Al-Ahram,An Egyptian news paper, and from the ATC of Sharm AL shake, the aircraft was at 5500 Feet when all the sudden the radar showed that the aircraft started shifting hard to right and left and then dropped 200 feet then started descending to 4000 feet then disappeared. Another interesting thing is the The F/O of the previous flight from Italy to Sharm just before the accident indicated that the aircraft was perfectly fine and working fine with no problems at the long flight from Italy to sharm. The aircraft received a C/d check four month ago. And was leased from ILFC For five years. The victims Included 133 French tourist , one Moracan, one Japanese and 13 crew member in which 6 were on duty and the other 6 were not.,

The 6 off-duty Egyptian crew members scare me the most - it was an off-duty crewman who dove Egypt Air 990 into the sea . . .

FYI:

Re: post #371 - Lastest report from "Spiegel" includes this:

Excerpt....

The Egyptian Charter Flash Airline's Boeing 737 crashed into the Red Sea on Saturday shortly after take off. None of the 148 passengers survived the accident. Regarding circumstances of the crash, the television station LCI reported that the machine had difficulty gaining altitude at take off, then lost 1500 meters altitude within 17 seconds. Finally, it dropped like a rock into the sea.

....

In the meantime, the prosecuting attorney's office in Paris has started inquiries into manslaughter. More and more details are becoming known, as well, that the Flash Airline planes didn't have the best level of safety. That's why the airline hasn't been allowed to fly into or over Switzerland since October 2002. The Swiss Federal Bureau of Civil Aviation (BAZL) had based the ban on serious deficiencies, explained spokeswoman Célestine Perissinotto on Swiss television DRS. [bold/italics print mine, lj]

According to information from a "SPIEGEL ONLINE" reader [A "Spiegel" reader sent them this info, lj] who flew on the plane in November, the Boeing didn't seem very well cared for, though. The seat backs were wobbly; everything crackled and looked almost shabby.

Apparently, the plane had been taken over from an airline company in a Spanish speaking area, because in many spots there had still been messages that could be read in Spanish. However, the crew made a competent impression, and take offs and landings ran optimally, as well.

"Spiegel-Online....Familien machen sich auf den Weg zum letzten Abschied

Translated by longjack