This is a 737-300:
Posted on 01/03/2004 11:36:24 AM PST by kattracks
Sunday January 4, 12:54 AMEgyptian and French officials rushed to exclude terrorism as a possible cause for the crash of a charter plane after it took off for Paris from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
"The incident is absolutely not the result of a terrorist act, but is linked to a technical failure of the plane," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said of the disaster that officials said killed all 148 people aboard.
In Paris, French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien said there was nothing to indicate that the cause of the crash was anything but an accident.
"We are largely working on the theory that this was an accident," de Robien told reporters. "Nothing indicates that there could have been any other cause."
The Egyptian navy and others were searching for the plane's black box flight data recorders in a search operation joined by Italian navy ships stationed in the Red Sea.
Maher said he had agreed during a phone conversation with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin that the two countries would cooperate to determine the causes of the incident.
France's junior transport minister Dominique Bussereau said the plane had a problem at takeoff.
"The plane had a problem at take-off and then tried to turn around, and it was at that moment that it apparently crashed," Bussereau told reporters before leaving for Egypt.
Egypt's tourism industry, the main source of foreign currency for the country, suffered a heavy blow in November 1997 when Islamic militants opened fire at a tourist site in Luxor, killing 56 foreigners.
A tourism industry official told AFP he was worried foreigners might cancel travel plans to Egypt during the peak season, even if the crash turns out to be an accident.
A senior police officer in Sharm el-Sheikh told AFP on condition he not be named that some witnesses had reported hearing an explosion in the pre-dawn hours but he said it was the result of the plane hitting the water.
"There was no explosion aboard the plane before it crashed into the sea," said civil aviation ministry engineer Faisal al-Shennawi.
Civil Aviation Minister Ahmed Shafik, who went to Sharm el-Sheikh with senior aides and technical experts, also said the crash was an accident.
"The aircraft had an ordinary technical failure just after take-off, which caused a loss of control and it crashed into the sea south of the airport of Sharm Sheikh," Shafik told state-run television, without specifying the nature of the failure.
"I hope we can soon determine the causes of the incident in a definitive way, although I repeat that it was the result of a technical failure," Shafik added.
Shafik said the plane's "altitude was not high, which made it very difficult for the pilot to save the aircraft and take it back" safely to the airport, adding that it had passed all required tests.
Egyptian officials said the plane disappeared from the radar screens around 4:44 am (0244 GMT).
"The control towers of Cairo and Sharm el-Sheikh airports received no distress call from the pilot before the crash," a Cairo airport official said.
Debris was found around seven kilometers (three miles) south of the airport at Sharm el-Sheikh, he added.
The Boeing 737-300 jet was one of two operated by Flash Airlines, both manufactured in 1993, according to the company's website. The airline was founded six years ago by Egyptian and Italian businessmen, a company official said.
http://www.flashtour.com/airline.htm
Flash Airlines both aircrafts are insured for legal and third party liability and passenger, liability by El Shark Insurance Company for an amount of 550 Millions USD for each aircraft.
mmmmh....I'm thinking that Flash Airlines with 2 planes insured by El shark Insurance might not be my carrier of choice.
This is a 737-300:
The turbulence from a plane that took off shortly before American Airlines flight 587 could have been a factor in the crash, investigators said Tuesday. At least 262 people died when the aircraft went down while en route from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. According to the jet's cockpit voice recorder, recovered from the crash site in Rockaway, a rattle emanates from the plane's mainframe before the jet is in the air two minutes, said National Transportation Safety Board Member George Black. Ten seconds later - when flight 587 has been aloft 114 seconds -- the pilot is heard commenting on encountering a "wake effect." The wake was from a Japan Airways Boeing 747 that had taken off minutes earlier, Black said.
Then, the recorder transmits the sound of a second rattle. At 127 seconds, there are comments suggesting loss of control in the aircraft, Black said.
One thing we can all be sure of.
Marion Blakey new head of the NTSB, doesn't know a tinkers damn about airplanes or investigating aircraft accidents.
This hack snake in the grass has absolutely no aviation experience, yet she goes in front of the cameras with her NTSB jacket on like she's some kind of expert and then states that there was "no evidence of terrorism".
This is exactly a lie, there is lots more evidence from eyewitness accounts and the unprecedented mid-air break up of the plane to suggest terrorism than there is to suggest mechanical failure.
The real NTSB investigators, in response to reporters questions, have repeatedly stated that they CANNOT RULE OUT TERRORISM.
The NTSB with her at it's head has lost all credibility.
It is never easy for the incoming head of the nation's lead safety agency, but Marion Blakey faces perhaps the toughest on-the-job training in the history of the National Transportation Safety Board.
A career Washington bureaucrat and lobbyist, Blakey was sworn in as the NTSB's chairwoman Sept. 26, barely 2 weeks after terrorists brought down four passenger jets.
Flight 587 was brought down by a shoe bomb, and the NTSB lied.
Those 262 civilized human beings deserve better than that.
They were victims of the terrorists, and should be recognized as such.
Park Police (Ft. Marcy) rule out foul play in Foster death.
Japanese rule out "alleged" participation at Pearl Harbor.
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