No burns on crash victims

2004-01-06 10:15

Sharm el Sheik, Egypt - Searchers hunting for the wreckage of an airliner zeroed in on a signal that could be the black box - holding clues to the cause of the Red Sea crash that killed all 148 people aboard, a French embassy official said.

The plane - an 11-year-old Boeing 737 operated by a private Cairo-based carrier - crashed shortly after takeoff Saturday from this popular Red Sea resort.

The crash coincided with heightened concern about terrorism in the skies, but Egypt quickly ruled out the possibility of an attack, saying the crash was an accident caused by a mechanical failure.

At the same time, Egyptian officials said they did not yet know the nature of the mechanical problem, adding that jet checked out fine before the flight.

The US State Department, meanwhile, said on Monday that four people with dual US-Egyptian citizenship were among the dead from the Flash Airlines flight, which was bound for Paris via Cairo. Most of the passengers were French tourists.

Michel Wachenheim, head of France's Civil Aviation Authority, said Monday night 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," he said. "We cannot exclude either an accident or a criminal cause."

France's top aviation official said while the crash appeared to be an accident, he couldn't rule out the possibility of terrorism.

Body parts recovered from the sea so far bore no burns, suggesting there was no explosion, French Deputy Foreign Minister Renaud Muselier said on Monday.

"There is no reason to believe there was an attack," Muselier told France-Info radio.

Signal could be black box

A signal that could be the plane's black box was detected late on Monday by radar on a robotic arm used by searchers at the crash scene, a French Embassy official said. The official, who declined to be named, called the signal a positive development and said the search would resume Tuesday morning.

As the country where the plane was made, the United States was sending a team of investigators to the scene, including experts from Boeing.

France has sent in advanced military equipment to help find wreckage and remains, as well as forensics experts to identify body parts through DNA testing.

A French military plane equipped with radar took its first surveillance flight over the area on Monday, and a team of 16 French military divers was to begin work Tuesday.

The aircraft was one of two Boeing 737s operated by Flash Airlines, which has suspended flights for three days in mourning for the victims.

Germany's civil aviation authority put Flash Airlines' flying rights under review as a precautionary measure in light of the crash.

- AP