Egypt Airliner CRASHED in Egypt - A final update on root cause analysis? Technical Fault Blamed

Various | 1/3/2004 | ME

[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

[Quilla]

Thank you.

[_Jim]

FoxNews still not mentioning this CRASH.

Oh, horrors.

This 'news', BTW, is all over GOOGLE NEWS though.

REAL effective 'coverup' huh?

[thesummerwind]

Of course it would be a "technical fault", and therefore not newsworthy.

It was probably the same as that out-of-control food cart that rolled down the ailse to the back of Flight 587 and destroyed the tailfin!

This is just another coverup once more, and FoxNews is talking about Bruce Willis' fashion sense, Fear Factor, and celebrity poker.

What a world!!! And the people sleep.

ALERT --- FoxNews is talking about it now --technical malfunction! -- a seven second news piece! Yeh, that food cart again.

[Freeper]

where the water is hundreds of meters (feet) deep --

Imagine how surprised they will be when they realize that a meter is more than a YARD long and not a "feet (foot)" as reported.

[thesummerwind]

The officials said it's not a conspiracy, so it must be a conspiracy!

What official mentioned "conspiracy"? Got an answer?

Every time people like you introduce the word, "conspiracy" to a discussion, you do so to bring illegitamacy to others' concerns. Real lame on your part.

[Henk]

sounds like a bomb

I think that's pretty standard for airplane crashes. The aluminum fuselage basically turns into a blender upon impact.

[SkyPilot]

"There is no sign of terrorism."

Sheesh. Accident investigations take months to complete!

Good grief. The Egyptians are so quick to end this inquirey before it has even begun.

Not to mention that when an Air Egypt Islamic maniac pilot T-handled both engines and aimed for the ocean (and said on the CVR recorded the struggle between him and the captain!!!) the Egyptians would not believe the facts.

[_Jim]

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I'm fully willing to accept any conclusion in the final analysis so long as it's based on *all* the evidence (not just a 'conspiratorial excerpt' that supports some pet theory) utilizing the latest scientific processing/processes for (for evidence processing) and sound analysis of that evidence by a competent, assembled board of seasoned aeronautical experts.

[thesummerwind]

Here's a simple explanation - they don't think it's worth reporting until they get more facts.

Now that is a reasonable suggestion.

But as I said, this same news coverage pattern occurred when Flight 587 went down in New York. Blair was there and there is so much more, but my bet is on terrorism, and the French and Egyptians will most likely not admit it for fear of losing tourist $$$$'s.

We'll see, or maybe we won't see. Do you have conclusions on Flight 800, by the way?

[thesummerwind]

Didn't the first reports say there was no indication from the plane that there was a problem?

Yes, and those reports have been deep-sixed, just like the original eye witness reports in New York with Flight 587. First witnesses then reported an explosion AWAY from the tail, and then, all of a sudden, their reports disappeared. I watched the whole sequence of coverage that morning. This is identical!!! This is classic coverup, IMO.

[TaxRelief]

No eye-witness reports of an explosion or surface-to-air missile.

No sounds of an explosion.

No significant number of the enemies of Al-Qaida (or is France on their doo-doo list, now?) on board.

No groups taking credit for the crash.

No dancing in the streets.

None of the things we expect to see when terrorism is involved.

We need to wait for the black boxes or more info before we can even start guessing.

[longjack]

"Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" is saying the same thing. This is the lead paragraph:

---

excerpt..

3 January 2004: A technical breakdown caused the plane crash with 148 deaths in Egypt, according to information from the Deputy French Minister of Transport Dominique Bussereau. Shortly after takeoff the plane had a "problem" said Bussereau in Paris on Saturday. The plane crashed into the Red Sea in the attempt to return to the airport at Scharm Al Scheich.

"Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung"....Boeing mit Touristen abgestürzt - 148 Tote

Translated by longjack

P.S. Thanks for bumping the first post to the other thread.

[thesummerwind]

The flight had a problem on takeoff .........I'd say so.

[thesummerwind]

Yeh .... the old fog thing! Nah!

[GeronL]

They won't wait for all the evidence. read the papers on Sunday... watch TV News.... "an apparent technical malfunction caused the plane..."

[Thinkin' Gal]

French anti-terrorism authorities in Paris said they did not expect to open an investigation, since the crash appears to be an accident.

Looks like they are jumping to conclusions before the facts are in. That's okay, apparently, if one says, "nothing to see here just move along." Just don't think it *might* be terrorism, and you're alright.

Looks like these folks departed Egypt in a Flash, yet they drowned in the Red Sea.

An undated handout picture taken at the Roissy airport, north of Paris, shows a Boing 737 belonging to the private Egyptian company Flash Airlines. A charter plane of the egyptian company carrying mostly French tourists has crashed in the Red Sea, 03 January 2004 near Sharm-el-Sheikh. The passengers and crew were killed in the crash.(AFP-HO)

[Quilla]

Many TWA 800 conspiracy theories were lent a bit of credibility after Stephanopoulis' infamous live comment on September 11:

"There are facilities in the White House, not the normal situation room, which everyone has seen in the past, has seen pictures of. There is a second situation room, behind the primary situation room, which has video conferencing capabilities. The director of the Pentagon, the defense chief, can speak from a national military command center at the Pentagon. The Secretary of State can speak from the State Department, the President from wherever he is, and they'll have this capability for video conferencing throughout this crisis." "In my time at the White House it was used in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, in the aftermath of the TWA Flight 800 bombing, and that would be the way they would stay in contact through the afternoon."

[thesummerwind]

Sweet Jim is one of those even-tempered, level-headed folks who we should all bow to at times such as this, don't you know? He may just be related to Arlen 'Scottish Law/Single Bullet' Spector afterall. He notes coyly that no one should "jump to confusion." Isn't he wise?