A charter jet packed with French tourists plummeted into the Red Sea off this beach resort Saturday, killing all 148 people on board.
French and Egyptian officials said the crash apparently was caused by mechanical trouble, not terrorism.
The Boeing 737, owned by Egyptian-based Flash Airlines, took off before dawn. The pilot apparently tried to turn back to shore abruptly and the plane pitched into the shark-infested Strait of Tiran. Except for one Japanese, one Moroccan and 13 Egyptian crew members, all the people on board were French, authorities said.
The cause of the crash remained a mystery Saturday night as searchers hunted the waters for the flight data and voice recorders. The crew did not put out a distress call, airport officials said, and other planes took off and landed safely in the clear weather.
The aircraft vanished from the radar a few minutes after taking flight.
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“There was a problem at takeoff,” France’s deputy transportation minister, Dominique Bussereau, told reporters at Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris. “It tried to turn back and … it crashed.”
During a holiday season in which numerous flights, including some originating in France, have been canceled for fear they might be targeted for hijacking by terrorists, Saturday’s crash raised worries.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair was vacationing with his family in Sharm el Sheik at the time of the accident. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a frequent visitor to the coastal haven, was to visit Blair to discuss Mideast peace prospects.
Egyptian and French officials were quick to say that there was no reason to suspect the plane had been attacked, and France was not expected to open a terrorism investigation.
The crash “is absolutely not the result of a terror act,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Maher said, “but is linked to a technical failure of the plane.”
Radar images indicate the jetliner took flight and turned left as normal. It then suddenly straightened out, turned right and tumbled into the sea. The last communication with the plane was at 5,300 feet.
“There was a malfunction that made it difficult for the crew to save the plane,” Civil Aviation Minister Ahmed Shafeeq told Egyptian television.
The plane had arrived overnight from Venice, dropping off tourists from Italy and reloading with French vacationers. It was headed for Cairo to change crews before flying to Paris. No mechanical problems had been found during inspections before takeoff.
France dispatched a top diplomat and police officers specialized in identifying corpses to work with Egyptian authorities “to shed light as quickly as possible on this catastrophe that has plunged our country into mourning,” French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said in Paris.
French prosecutors also opened an investigation for “involuntary homicide” into the case, a routine step needed to speed cooperation with Egypt, according to French officials.
“Everything will be done in coordination with the Egyptian authorities in order to clarify the causes of the crash,” Jean-Louis Nadal, the chief prosecutor in Paris, said at Charles de Gaulle Airport.
At Egypt’s request, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board will send an investigator.
In Paris, friends and family turned up at Charles de Gaulle to greet the homecoming vacationers. Television footage showed them looking up at information screens showing that the flight was delayed, then bursting into tears, hugging or simply staring in shock as news of the crash spread. Police and airport personnel bused them to an airport hotel, where doctors and counselors were waiting.
Most of the French families had flown to Cairo by Saturday night and were expected to arrive in Sharm el Sheik on Sunday morning in hopes of identifying any remains. Most of the victims were part of a group tour organized by FRAM, one of France’s largest travel operators.
In Cairo, weeping relatives of missing crew members crowded the offices of Flash Airlines to demand information about their kin. The pilot, Khidr Abdallah, was in his mid-40s, “a very competent pilot with many years’ experience,” said another Flash Airlines pilot who asked not to be named.