Crash plane 'intact on sea bed'

2004-01-09 18:49

Cairo - The Egyptian plane that crashed in the Red Sea is still in one piece, but at a depth beyond the searchers' retrieval capacities, said aviation minister Ahmed Shafeeq on Friday.

Shafeeq said France would shortly provide the search operation with equipment to reach the wreckage, which is believed to be lying between 600m and 800m below the surface.

The chartered Boeing 737 of Flash Airlines crashed on January 3, minutes after taking off from the south Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheik, bound for Paris. All 148 people on board were killed, including 134 French citizens.

Shafeeq said the plane's sudden disappearance from radar screens and the small scale of debris floating on the sea suggest the fuselage is relatively intact.

"What has been retrieved so far is not part of the main body of the plane," he said.

"There is a major part of the plane still deep in the water, perhaps holding some of the victim's bodies," he said.

Special deep-water submarine

However, the fuselage's suspected depth of 800m is "beyond our present capabilities to retrieve," he said.

Shafeeq said France would be sending in more advanced equipment within days.

The French equipment apparently includes a special submarine on loan from France-Telecom that can dive to 1 100m and can retrieve objects weighing from 100kg to 500kg. The submarine is expected to be operational by Monday.

Another French submarine and a robot owned by Comex, a French company specialising in underwater robotics, is scheduled to arrive by January 15.

Shafeeq emphasised there was no evidence of any terrorist involvement.

"This accident is 100% because of a technical fault," he said.

- AP