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Too Soon to Dismiss Terror as Cause of Egyptian Air Disaster DEBKAfile Special Analysis January 3, 2004, 8:20 PM (GMT+02:00) Hours after an privately chartered Egyptian airplane crashed in the Red Sea at 04.44 local time on Saturday, January 3, just after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh, French Justice Minister Dominique Perben asked prosecutors to open a preliminary inquiry for manslaughter. The justice ministry in Paris said tactfully that the manslaughter inquiry “does not prejudge in any way the causes of the catastrophe,” but provides a legal framework for a joint French-Egyptian investigation. There were no survivors of the 148 people...

Local news just flashed that an Egypt Airliner has crashed in Egypt... Reporting majority of ~135 passengers are French tourists....

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt (AP) -- The United States and France are sending experts to Egypt to help investigate the crash of a charter jet shortly after takeoff from a Red Sea resort. All 148 people on board the Flash Airlines charter -- mostly French tourists -- were killed. Egypt's foreign minister blames the crash on mechanical failure, not terrorism. But it happened as the British prime minister was visiting the resort, and during a week of delayed and canceled international flights amid fears of possible terrorist acts. Bodies of passengers and parts of the Boeing 737 have been located floating...

Sunday January 4, 12:54 AM Egyptian and French officials rushed to exclude terrorism as a possible cause for the crash of a charter plane after it took off for Paris from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. "The incident is absolutely not the result of a terrorist act, but is linked to a technical failure of the plane," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said of the disaster that officials said killed all 148 people aboard. In Paris, French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien said there was nothing to indicate that the cause of the crash was anything but an...