French deploy robot to find Red Sea crash plane

THE French Navy deployed a robot submarine as France and Egypt stepped up a major search to find the fuselage and flight data recorders of the aircraft that crashed into the Red Sea, killing 148 people.

Body parts recovered from the sea so far bore no burns, suggesting there was no explosion on the Egyptian-chartered Boeing 737 that plunged into the sea minutes after takeoff on Saturday, French Deputy Foreign Minister Renaud Muselier said.

The crash came amid worldwide fears that terrorists would use an aircraft to stage an atrocity. But Muselier told France-Info radio: "There is no reason to believe there was an attack." He said he thought the crash, which killed 133 French citizens, was an accident. Egyptian officials say the crash appeared to have been caused by a mechanical problem.

Swiss aviation authorities had banned the airline, Flash Airlines, after it failed an inspection at Zurich airport in October 2002. The same month, one of Flash's two Boeings was forced to make an emergency landing in Athens after an engine caught fire.

The chairman of Flash Airlines, Mohamed Nour, said the company made the necessary improvements and passed a second Swiss inspection but the Swiss denied this. Nour said the aircraft that suffered the fire was overhauled and subsequently maintained to international standards.

The depth of the Red Sea at the crash site, believed to be 800 metres, has hampered efforts to find the flight data recorders.

The French began using a frigate, a helicopter, 16 divers and an aircraft equipped with advanced radar and an ultraviolet camera to search for the wreckage today, said French Embassy spokesman Ahmed Fadil. The robot submarine, called Achille, has a video camera and can dive to a maximum of 400 metres, Fadil said.

The wife of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Suzanne Mubarak, dropped a wreath on the water at the site today.

So far about 60 body parts have been recovered and no entire corpse an indication of the impact of the crash.

Egypt has said the Flash Airlines jet, an 11-year-old Boeing 737, had checked out before the flight.