Questions raised on Egypt airline's safety ( 2004-01-05 09:28) (Agencies)
Questions were raised Sunday about a charter
airline's safety standards after one of its planes crashed into the Red Sea,
killing 148 people. Swiss authorities said they banned Flash Airlines 14 months
ago after it flunked an inspection and an Italian passenger recalled a flight
when an engine burst into flames.
The head of the airline said the aircraft had been in good condition before
the crash. Officials suspect mechanical failure.
Tourists stand on a pier as an Egyptian
naval vessel searches the crash scene of an Egyptian charter airplane in
the Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, Sunday, Jan. 4,
2004. [AP]
"I am 100 percent sure that the plane was fit for flying," Mohamed Nour,
chairman of Flash Airlines, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Accidents
happen. We are sorry for the losses of life but we shouldn't jump into
speculation."
Search crews on military and civilian vessels continued efforts to recover
bodies, the flight data recorder and the fuselage.
The extreme depth of the wreckage, believed to be resting in 2,600 feet of
water, was hampered recovery, and only small plane pieces and body parts from
the shark-infested waters near the resort had been found.
France dispatched three aircraft with 50 experts, a military surveillance
plane, a naval frigate, 16 scuba divers and a robot submarine to help. Of the
148 passengers who died, there were 133 French tourists, a Japanese, a Moroccan
and 13 Egyptian crew members.
French Deputy Foreign Minister Renaud Muselier told reporters there was
nothing to suggest that terrorism was the cause of Saturday's crash of Flash
Airlines Flight FSH604, which had just taken off from Sharm el-Sheik on its way
to Paris when it crashed.
French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien said indications suggest the plane
suffered "simply a loss of power."
Egyptian officials have said preliminary information indicates the crash was
caused by a mechanical problem. Radar images showed the plane turned left as
normal after takeoff, straightened out and then turned right before plunging
into the sea.
Several tourists and witnesses interviewed by AP said they did not hear any
explosions before the crash.
Egypt has said the Flash Airlines jet, an 11-year-old Boeing 737, had checked
out fine before the flight.
Swiss officials said Sunday that technical problems forced them to ban the
Egyptian company's planes from landing in Switzerland.
"A series of safety shortcomings showed up in a plane of Flash Airlines
during a routine security check at Zurich Airport in October 2002," Celestine
Perissinotto, a spokeswoman for the Swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation,
told AP.
Egyptian Aviation Minister Ahmed Shafeeq called the Swiss charge "baseless."
French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien also cast doubt on the claim, saying
he understood "it was more for economic reasons that this company did not fly
over Switzerland."
"I call for extreme caution with this type of announcement that adds emotion
for families who certainly don't need it at the moment," the French minister
said on Europe-1 radio.
Perissinotto said the Swiss report had been given to Egyptian civil aviation
authorities. "Since then we have had no reaction," Perissinotto said.
Nour, Flash's chairman, confirmed the Swiss had stopped flights but said the
airline made the necessary maintenance and was inspected again.
"After that we were allowed to fly again, with Swiss citizens on board," he
said, adding that the airline made one more flight to Switzerland the next week,
and then the contract ended.
Nour confirmed Italian press reports that a Flash plane caught fire while
flying over Greece the same month as the Zurich airport inspection. Italian
tourists recalled seeing flames coming out of the starboard engine on a flight
from Sharm el-Sheik to Bologna, Italy, on Oct. 27, 2002. The plane landed at
Athens airport with fire engines alongside the runway.
"To say that the plane was decrepit would be a compliment," passenger Eugenio
Gedda told Italian state television Sunday.
Flash Airlines' chief pilot Hassan Mounir could not say if the fire occurred
on the same plane that crashed Saturday, but said such incidents aren't unusual.
"It's normal," he said. "You can have an engine fire in flight."
Flash Airlines, which has been in business six years, operated two Boeing
737s.
Asked whether the fire and Zurich inspection raised questions about the
standard of maintenance at Flash Airlines, Mounir replied: "No, our planes are
very well maintained."
Flash Airlines' remaining plane, also an 11-year-old Boeing 737, flew
tourists from France to Cairo Sunday, according to airport officials. It was not
clear how many passengers were on board.
Muselier told reporters in Sharm el-Sheik that about 60 "portions of bodies"
had been retrieved, but that the remains were so badly mangled that it would be
difficult to identify them.
In a solemn, brief ceremony out at sea, the dead were bid a final farewell.
French, Egyptian and Japanese officials led a convoy of three tourist ferries
filled with journalists to the site where the plane went down.
There, they held three bouquets, wrapped at the stem with the French,
Egyptian and Japanese flags, upside down and let them slip into the water, as
helicopters flew overhead.
