Posted on 01/03/2004 4:50:17 AM PST by Gorons
Egypt Plane Crash Kills 148; Technical Fault Blamed
By Ruben Sprich Reuters Saturday, January 3, 2004; 7:15 AM
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - An Egyptian Boeing 737 airliner carrying 135 mostly French tourists crashed into the Red Sea off the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday and a rescue team member said there were no survivors.
"The initial indications are that it was a technical fault, but that is only preliminary," Civil Aviation Ministry Secretary-General Hassan Abo Ghanima told Reuters. He had said earlier: "There is no sign of terrorism."
The plane, operated by the Egyptian company Flash Airlines, disappeared from radar screens minutes after take-off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport at 0244 GMT and crashed into deep water a few miles to the southeast, official sources said.
The pilots did not report any problem and the weather was normal with good visibility, official sources said. The plane was heading for Cairo to refuel, change crew and take on more passengers before flying on to Paris.
A French diplomat based in Egypt said there were 135 passengers aboard, all but one French, and 13 Egyptian and Moroccan crew members.
The crash coincided with intense U.S. concern about possible attacks involving civilian airliners, which has led to the cancellation of seven U.S.-bound flights in just over a week.
Egyptian military aircraft and ships, helped by small boats from nearby diving centers, launched a rescue operation at first light. Eyewitnesses said they were finding pieces of human bodies but no complete corpses and no survivors.
"We have half of a body here, half a body there. But we don't have any body in one piece," said a rescue worker, speaking by telephone from one of the boats.
"There's lots of personal stuff, small bags and toys. We have collected very small pieces of the plane but the body of the plane has sunk," said another rescue worker, who asked not to be named.
Yasser Imam, a spokesman for the local authorities, said: "What they have picked up so far is just fragments of bodies. The chances of finding complete bodies look slim because of the force with which the plane hit the surface of the water."
DEEP WATER
The plane crashed in the Strait of Tiran, between the Sinai peninsula and Saudi Arabia, where the water is hundreds of meters (feet) deep -- too deep for divers to reach the flight recording devices, diving school managers said.
French President Jacques Chirac telephoned his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak to obtain details of the crash and expressed his "deepest shock" at the tragedy, his office said.
Eyewitnesses in Sharm el-Sheikh said the rescue operation was concentrating on an area about half a mile off Naama Bay, the site of many large hotels.
An Egyptian armed forces C-130 transport plane and two helicopters were taking part in the search, witnesses said.
Flash Airlines is an Egyptian charter airline company based in Cairo and flying to European cities. It flew two Boeing 737-300 planes manufactured in 1993, according to its Web site.
The plane was maintained regularly in Norway and there was no sign of any mechanical fault before its last flight, the official Egyptian news agency MENA reported.
French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien went to Charles de Gaulle airport, where distraught friends and relatives of passengers on the flight were being told of the crash.
An eyewitness speaking on Egyptian television said people heard a loud noise at the time of the crash but he interpreted this as the sound of the plane hitting the water. "In the morning we were surprised by a kind of slapping noise in the sea, a very loud noise," said the unidentified witness.
Sharm el-Sheikh, a major diving resort, is considered one of the most secure places in Egypt because of its isolation and Mubarak's frequent presence. Police man checkpoints on the only paved roads into the resort and check travelers' identities.
The last major crash by an Egyptian plane took place in May 2002, when a Boeing 767 of the state airline EgyptAir crashed near Tunis airport, killing 15 people.
In October 1999, an EgyptAir Boeing 767 dived into the sea off Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 people on board.
On Christmas Day, a Beirut-bound Boeing 727 smashed into the Atlantic after take-off from Benin, killing 138 people.
© 2004 Reuters
Usama was into blowing up embassies for a while (in addition to the Trade Center). It worked well. Structures is his expertise.
The 9-11 hits only worked okay leaving two targets unscathed.
So it looks like we're back to structures....structures of planes. How do we by-pass security, pack a plane with explosives and hold it there, detonate it at a time it will do the most damage, and have almost simultaneous events.
excerpt....
Egyptian air traffic control authorities named a technical defect as the probable cause of the accident.
"The cause is still a technical one so far," Secretary for Civilian Air Traffic, Ahmed Schafik, said on state television. "There was a malfunction which made it difficult for the crew to save the airplane". French traffic undersecretary Dominique Bussereau said flight FSH604 had problems at take off in Scharm al Scheich on Saturday. After that, the pilot had tried to return to the airport. The Egyptian authorities explained an emergency call hadn't been sent. Egyptian Secretary of State Ahmed Maher said the accident isn't deemed as being connected with a terrorist attack.
"FAZ"....Boeing mit Touristen abgestürzt - 148 Tote
Translated by longjack
I thought 'tailfins' went out in the late fifties/early sixties - did they SOMEHOW make a comeback for *style* reasons in the field of aeronautics?
(Methinks this poor person is referring to a 'vertical stabilizer'. NTSB report)
It's hard to imagine how the authorities know the plane had problems even though it didn't send out an SOS. Maybe the pilots were talking with ATC the entire time while trying to get it back in, then lost it suddenly.
It also seems that the information about the plane turning back came out 4 or 5 hours after the reports that the plane had crashed, which was 3 or 4 hours after the crash itself. The plane crashed at 10:45 PM EST last night by my calcualtions.
I have no idea if this time line is usual, so I'll have to defer to those people who know what they're talking about.
OTOH, all the material coming out is consistent with a mechanical failure such as the rudder issues these planes are known to have.
Egypt certainly doesn't want to scare away tourists, so they will be very careful with issuing statements, I'm sure.
longjack
"Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry initially ruled out terrorism, calling the crash an "accident" apparently caused by a mechanical problem. Egypt's civil aviation minister says there was some sort of malfunction and there was little the crew could do to save to plane"
How in a few hours does this Minister know all this? And if he does, why doesn't he elaborate on the specifics of the problem if it was only mechanical?
In the US, would we accept it if Rumsfeld got on the air a few hours after a crash like this and said "oh, it was all mechanical, we just know this" and nothing more was said?
This thing does smell bad.
Excerpt....
According to information from a "SPIEGEL ONLINE" reader who flew with 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"...."Die Verwandten stehen unter Schock"
Translated by longjack
longjack
--- a much better world than yours, I can say for sure, as he lived three doors away from me for over a decade!
You stepped in it again, Arlen.
I don't have a strong opinion on it. I suspect it was either as the NTSB says it was, or it was shot down by terrorists. I am somewhat doubtful that it was shot down by the Navy and covered up afterwards. That would involve deception on the part of hundreds of people in different parts of the government at multiple levels. I don't think such a deception could last very long. Someone's conscience would get the best of them.
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