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No Survivors In Red Sea Crash

Sad story

From CNN:

CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) -- Rescue crews said Saturday they expected no survivors from an Egyptian charter plane that crashed into the Red Sea carrying 152 people, most of them French tourists.

Egyptian passport officials said 136 of the passengers were French, seven were Egyptian and one each were Japanese and Moroccan. The plane carried a crew of seven.

The Boeing 737 vanished from radar five minutes after taking off at 4:45 a.m. Saturday (9:45 p.m. Friday ET) from the seaside resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, airline officials said.

Aviation officials said the aircraft did not make a distress call. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and Civil Aviation Minister Ahmed Mohamed Shafiq Zaki both quickly denied any terrorist involvement, saying the crash appeared to have resulted from a technical problem.....

https://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/03/...iner/index.html

Crash Sea Red Survivors No

Has anyone heard anything further on the cause of this crash? I find it interesting that they very quickly ruled out terrorism. It seems that is always mentioned now immediately after any major catastrophe. However, since they don't know what caused the crash or other catastrophe, how can they know for sure? I wonder why the pilot never radioed any distress call? What about he large explosion that was heard? I suppose that could have been the impact they were hearing, but I wonder why the pilot never radioed a problem? He apparently had manuevered to return to the airport so that would indicate he knew something was wrong.