The Hindu : Terrorism not the likely cause, says Egypt

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 04, 2004

International

International

Terrorism not the likely cause, says Egypt

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA Jan. 3 . A chartered plane carrying 148 people, mostly French nationals, crashed into the Red Sea shortly after take off from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday.

The Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry in an initial statement has ruled out terrorism as the cause of the accident, which has apparently left no survivors.

The plane took off from Sharm el-Sheikh and was heading towards Cairo en route to Paris. An agency report quoted French officials as saying that there were 134 French nationals, one Moroccan and 13 crewmembers on the flight.

The Boeing 737 jet run by the Egyptian Air Flash went off the radar screen soon after take-off. It arrived at Sharm el-Sheikh from Milan, Italy.

There was no distress call from the airliner, officials said.

The French President, Jacques Chirac, spoke with his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak about the tragedy, the Egyptian news agency MENA reported. Soon after the crash at around 5 A.M local time, Egyptian military helicopters and small patrol boats unsuccessfully looked for survivors for nearly eight hours. One body was recovered and at least 50 floating body parts were retrieved.

Several suitcases were seen floating near the crash site and the wreckage of the plane was found close to the coast land, around 14 km, from the airport. Engineers from the national carrier EgyptAir have been rushed to the site.

In Cairo, grief-stricken relatives of crew members and others had assembled in the airline's office.

Air Flash said it owned two Boeing 737 planes and had been in business for six years.

The plane reportedly went down in one of the deepest portions of the sea in that area.

In Paris, the Deputy Transportation Minister, Dominique Bussereau, said that the flight had encountered a problem during takeoff and had crashed when it tried to return.

The crash took place at a time when the security alert against a possible terrorist action was high. Egyptian officials, however, said that the `accident' could have been caused by a mechanical failure. Up until now, the cause is a technical one,'' Minister of Civil Aviation, Ahmed Shafeeq, later told state-run Egyptian television. "There was a malfunction that made it difficult for the crew to ... save the plane.''

The plane had been routinely checked last in Norway and been found fit to fly.

The weather in Sharm-el-Sheikh was also clear and other flights had taken off without a hitch. French authorities will help Egypt "in order to shed light as quickly as possible on this catastrophe that has plunged our country into mourning", said the French Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, in a statement.

French anti-terrorism authorities in Paris said that they were unlikely to launch an investigation, as the crash appeared to have been an accident.

Sharm-el-Sheikh on the edge of the Sinai Peninsula, 480 km. from Cairo, is an upscale resort town, where the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is on vacation. Egypt's last major airline disaster occurred in 1999, when an EgyptAir jetliner crashed shortly after departing from New York for Cairo, killing all 217 people on board.

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