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Al-Ahram Weekly 31 August - 6 September 2000 Issue No. 497 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 31 August - 6 September 2000 Issue No. 497
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Tragedy over the Gulf
By Jailan HalawiSixty-five Egyptians bade farewell to their relatives on 23 August and boarded a plane bound for the Gulf island of Bahrain. A few days later, they were sent back home in coffins. Gulf Air Airbus A320 crashed into the sea as it approached Bahrain Airport and all 143 people on board were killed.
The remains of the victims were collected, and the luggage and clothing that floated to the surface were retrieved.
Many of the bodies were disfigured and relatives, who had flown from Cairo to Bahrain by a special Gulf Air flight, struggled to identify loved ones so that they could claim their remains for burial.
Fifty-six bodies returned home Saturday, five more on Sunday. Two bodies were mistakenly buried in Saudi Arabia, but will remain there with the consent of their families, and a woman was buried in Bahrain at the request of her Bahraini husband. The last body, that of Nabil Ramzi Boutros, arrived on Monday.
In all, 155 relatives and seven doctors, clergymen and officials took the special flight to Manama last Thursday. The cries and wails of the passengers' relatives echoed in the halls of Manama airport and tens of men and women, with reddened eyes and tears flowing, wept loudly.
At a hotel in the capital, relatives of the Egyptians and the other passengers, sobbed as a Gulf Air official, his voice choking, read out the names of their loved ones listed as victims. They were asked to make identifications from photos taken after the bodies were recovered.
"This is the worst day of my life. I lost a part of me," said 45-year-old Khalifa Al-Hashil from Saudi Arabia. His 35-year-old brother, Mohamed, died in the crash.
At least 15 victims were buried last Thursday at Manama Cemetery, the country's largest. Mohamed Jassim, 45, an undertaker at the cemetery, washed disfigured faces and mutilated bodies with rose water before the remains, still in body bags tagged at a makeshift morgue, were placed in freshly dug graves.
"It's a painful sight, I've handled dead bodies before, but none so dreadful to look at," he said.
Amjad Obeid, a Bahraini physician burying his sister-in-law, four-year-old niece and 10-year-old nephew, said that he was summoned by a disaster alert on his pager.
"Only when I got to the hospital I found out that this plane carried my brother's wife and her children," Obeid said following prayers and burial. They had been returning from a holiday in Egypt.
On Saturday and Sunday, the tragedy continued as crowds of grieving Egyptians thronged Cairo Airport to meet the bodies of relatives killed in the crash. Lines of ambulances and private cars awaited the coffins as they were unloaded from planes.
A woman who had lost her child in the disaster shrieked and had to be helped across the airport by another woman.
One woman fainted after getting off a plane and had to be resuscitated by doctors, who gave her an injection and provided her with a wheelchair.
Crowds gathered outside the airport. Women wailed and men cried silently as cars emerged carrying coffins.
One would-be passenger escaped death after he was stopped from boarding the doomed flight because he failed to meet a bureaucratic requirement.
Hisham El-Husseini, a 28-year-old Egyptian teacher, said that an airport officer in charge of verifying passports refused to let him on the flight because he did not have a permit to work abroad.
Victims' relatives return to Cairo after the painful ordeal of identifying loved ones photo: Khaled El-Fiqi
"It is the will of God who wanted to write a new life for me," he said, adding that an Omani friend woke him up to tell him about the fate of the flight. "I felt my body turn cold, like a piece of ice. I just cannot believe that I have escaped death. I have the sensation of a film running before my eyes, I saw the faces of the people who boarded the plane; it is so sad," he said.
According to the Bahrain Tribune newspaper, the pilot was speeding as he attempted to land and was requested by the control tower to slow down before landing. Had the plane landed at such a speed it would have overshot the runway, the newspaper said, citing an alleged conversation between the pilot and the air traffic control tower and visual images on the tower's radar.
The newspaper said the pilot responded to the tower's instructions by climbing again, then making two turns to reduce speed and finally approaching the runway.
However, the newspaper added, the plane's speed was still too high for landing and the tower again instructed the pilot to reduce speed.
"On the third attempt, the pilot took a small turn at high speed; he lost control, which caused the plane to nose-dive and crash into the shore next to the runway," said the newspaper.
Bahraini authorities and US navy divers based in the Gulf recovered the plane's two black boxes, the flight data and voice cockpit recorders. Neither appeared damaged, according to Bahraini civil defence chief James Windsor. Transportation Minister Sheikh Ali bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa said he was hopeful the recorders, which were sent to the United States for analysis, would provide some clues. "Any news, anything out of it would be a help," he said, but would not comment on possible causes of the crash.
Ali Ahmedi, a spokesman and an acting vice president for Gulf Air, said it is too early to speculate on a cause. But he said there was no indication the pilot was anticipating an emergency landing. "The pilot did not make any kind of statements on problems on the plane," Ahmedi said.
Under the best circumstances, a water landing is risky, said Michael Barr, director of the aviation programme at the University of Southern California. Even a pilot coming in relatively slowly onto the water, hoping to skip across its surface like a stone tossed by a child, could clip a wing and lose control, he said.
The depth of the water would make little difference to the landing, though shallow water would make search and rescue efforts easier, said Barr. The plane crashed in shallow water near the shore.
US navy helicopters, small boats and an ocean-going tug quickly joined the night-time search and rescue effort a few miles off the northern coast of Bahrain. The island is the headquarters of the US navy's 5th fleet. Bahrain's Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa personally directed the effort, said the US military. Investigators, including Bahraini authorities, French experts and an Airbus Industries representative, are trying to determine what happened in the time between pilot Ihsan Shakeeb's aborted landing at 19.29 GMT and the plane's crash 60 seconds later.
Gulf Air's Chief Pilot Hameed Ali said investigators would examine the speed and altitude of Shakeeb's aborted landing as part of their probe.
"It's very important, and I may add that intracockpit communication is even more important. We have not listened to that yet," he said. "But we have spotted no error in Shakeeb's approach," he added.
Ali refused to speculate on a possible cause of the crash, but emphasised that Shakeeb was an experienced crew member with 6,856 hours and 14 minutes of flying time. The minimum qualifying time for a Gulf Air pilot is 4,000 hours.
Shakeeb, who had eight years of experience, had calmly requested a "go around" from air traffic controllers on his first approach to Bahrain Airport, according to Gulf Air. After circling once, he aborted his landing attempt without explanation and, one minute later, the Airbus 320 nose-dived into the sea. Shakeeb's remains were buried on Saturday.
Fleet spokesman Commander Jeff Gradeck said the US navy's role had diminished significantly after the search-and-rescue operation was completed. But he said, at the Bahraini government's request, it would be involved in salvaging the wreckage, providing divers and a 10-ton crane.
Thirty-six of the 143 victims were children, officials have said. All appeared to be travelling with their families instead of on a school or sports trip. Many families are ending holidays at this time of the year in the region, which could account for the large number of children aboard.
Gulf Air said 135 passengers and eight crew members were on board. Sixty-five were Egyptian, 34 Bahraini, 12 Saudi Arabian, nine Palestinian, six from the United Arab Emirates, three Chinese, two British and one each from Canada, Oman, Kuwait, Sudan and Australia as well as a diplomatic courier from the United States. Two crew members were Bahraini with one each from Oman, the Philippines, Poland, India, Morocco and Egypt.
This is the second tragedy for Egyptians in less than a year. On 31 October 1999, a plane carrying 217 mostly Egyptian passengers crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Massachusetts. The cause of that crash remains undetermined.
In the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, two evening concerts were postponed out of respect for the Gulf Air victims, one at the request of First Lady Suzanne Mubarak.
Gulf Air Director Sheikh Ahmed bin Seif Al-Nahayan said the company will pay each victim's family $25,000 within the next few days.
