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EgyptAir
Flight Went Down In Heavy Rains, Ambassador
CAIRO,
May 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The EgyptAir plane that
crashed in Tunisia Tuesday went down amid heavy rains in rocky and
shrub-covered hills outside Tunis, the Egyptian ambassador in Tunis
told Egyptian state television.
The
ambassador, Mahdi Fathallah, told the interviewer from the scene that
he believed the accident was a result of "bad weather
conditions," adding it "was raining very hard" at the
scene of the crash, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
But
in a later interview on television, he cautioned that the plane's
black boxes, containing the flight data, had not been found.
"The
aircraft crashed after it hit the mountain but there was no
fire," he added.
When
asked whether the lack of a fire meant that the aircraft had run out
of fuel, he replied: "I don't think so."
Egyptian
television showed the cockpit and the front section of the plane
virtually intact, though aircraft wreckage, suitcases and soggy
newspapers littered the rocky, shrub-covered highlands outside Tunis.
Rescue
workers were seen carrying stretchers with blankets and sheets
covering bodies. Several rescuers could be seen covering the body of
one man with a sheet.
The
sky was dark but it was not raining in the footage shown on
television.
The
ambassador said later that at least 18 people died in the crash and 33
people were taken to the hospital.
The
plane, on a short hop from the Egyptian capital Cairo to Tunis, put
out a distress signal shortly before it came down some six kilometers
(four miles) from Tunis airport.
EgyptAir
in Cairo said the plane took off from the Egyptian capital at around
1:30 pm (1330 GMT) with 56 passengers and at least eight crew on
board.
"A
member of the crew telephoned to say the aircraft was going to try to
make an emergency landing, but we have had no news since," said
an EgyptAir official.
News
of the crash chilled Egyptians fearing the repeat of An EgyptAir
Boeing 767 crash off the coast of the United States in 1999, killing
all 217 people on board.
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