Free Republic

One of the two black box flight recorders from a plane that crashed early this month off the Egyptian coast, killing all 148 people on board, has been recovered, a French source told AFP. It added that the box would be officially handed over to Egyptian authorities at 0900 GMT. The Flash Airlines Boeing 737 crashed shortly after take-off for Paris from this Red Sea resort, killing 134 French tourists and a Moroccan as well as 13 Egyptian crew members. The black boxes are expected to reveal the exact cause of the tragedy, which Egyptian and French experts believe...

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - France said on Monday it attached little credence to a previously unknown Islamic group's claim to have brought down a plane that crashed off Egypt, killing 133 French tourists and 15 other people. Egypt again defended the safety record of Flash Airlines, operators of the Boeing 737 that plunged into the Red Sea on Saturday, but Switzerland issued a fresh statement that it had banned the Egyptian company from its airspace on safety grounds. French civil aviation authority head Michel Wachenheim said France's own checks on the doomed plane had showed "nothing abnormal." An anonymous...

PARIS MANY children and entire families were among at least 134 French tourists killed in a plane crash off the Egyptian coast while heading home after a New Year holiday in the sun, a French airport official said yesterday. Thirty-five relatives of some of those aboard the Egyptian airliner which crashed into the Red Sea early yesterday gathered at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport to grieve and speak to counsellors. The plane also carried 13 crew members of Flash Airlines, a private firm. The head of medical services at the airport told reporters that many children were on board the...