Posted on 01/06/2004 10:11:31 AM PST by m1-lightning
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt Jan. 6 — Searchers have located one of the "black box" flight data recorders from a crashed charter jet but it was too deep to be immediately retrieved, a French official said Tuesday. Rear Adm. Jacques Mazars told reporters at the popular resort that more advanced equipment was needed to retrieve the box, which was believed to be 1,970 to 2,620 feet below the sea's surface.
"What is important for us is to retrieve one of the boxes," he said.
A robot submarine sent by the French can operate no deeper than 1,320 feet. The seabed in the area drops at one point to about 3,300 feet.
The Flash Airlines plane an 11-year-old Boeing 737 crashed into the Red Sea shortly after takeoff Saturday, killing all 148 people aboard. Most victims were French tourists and France has sent in 500 personnel to help Egypt with search and recovery.
The crash coincided with heightened global concerns about terrorism in the skies, but Egypt quickly ruled out the possibility of an attack, calling the crash an accident caused by a mechanical failure.
Still, Egyptian officials acknowledged they did not know the nature of the mechanical problem, and they added that jet checked out fine before the flight.
The U.S. State Department said Monday that four people with dual U.S.-Egyptian citizenship were killed on the flight bound for Paris via Cairo. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo declined Tuesday to provide any names.
France's top aviation official said Monday night that while the crash appeared to be an accident, he couldn't rule out terrorism.
"We have no information concerning the cause of this accident, and until we have the flight recorder, we won't know," said Michel Wachenheim, head of France's Civil Aviation Authority. "We cannot exclude either an accident or a criminal cause."
Body parts recovered thus far have shown no burns, suggesting there was no explosion, French Deputy Foreign Minister Renaud Muselier said Monday.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Tuesday that he cannot "speculate about what happened on the plane that crashed."
"But I don't think it was a terrorist act because there's no possibility for that in Sharm el-Sheik or anywhere else in Egypt," Mubarak told reporters in the northern city of Alexandria.
"We have to wait until the black box is found to determine what went wrong and whether there was a problem with the plane," Mubarak added.
Since the jet was U.S.-made, the United States was sending a team of investigators, including experts from Boeing.
France has dispatched equipment including a military surveillance plane that has been looking for floating debris in a 1.6 square mile area. France also flew in forensics experts hoping to identify body parts through DNA testing.
Families of victims were to begin arriving Wednesday in Sharm el-Sheik, about 480 miles southeast of Cairo, for memorial services on land and sea. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin is also flying in for the ceremonies.
The aircraft was one of two Boeing 737s operated by Flash.
The Swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation has disclosed that it detected safety problems with both airplanes and it has banned Flash from flying into Switzerland for more than a year.
The Flash chairman, Mohamed Nour, said his company made necessary improvements and later passed Swiss inspection but the Swiss denied this.
In 2003, Switzerland informed France of its concerns. French authorities carried out three checks and obtained satisfactory results, said French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien.
The Egyptian el-Sharq Insurance company, which covered Flash Airlines, said in a statement it intends to pay full compensation to victims' families but first must settle matters with re-insurers, according to a statement quoted by Egypt's Middle East News Agency. The company said each victim's family is entitled to $350,000.
| Rank | Location | Receipts | Donors/Avg | Freepers/Avg | Monthlies | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 44 | Thailand | 50.00 |
1 |
50.00 |
7 |
7.14 |
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Brilliant! Good planning Pierre!
Obviously with this comment:
"Egypt quickly ruled out the possibility of an attack, calling the crash an accident caused by a mechanical failure."
if they already know what caused the crash before they even retrieved the black box then I'm a little suspicious if they are lying or if they knew the plane had mechanical problems before it took off.
The short flight deck aircraft carrier and now this
Talk about creating suspicion!
I guess we'll have to bail them out, again.
It's kind of like that friend that works the same job as you but never seems to have any money when it comes time to pay for lunch.
What an incredibly revealing thing to say.
Or that out of control food cart.
This was most likely terrorism, just by the way everyone has been performing, news people included.
Just theatre!!!
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