Entire families wiped out in Gulf Air crash

Entire families wiped out in Gulf Air crash
REUTERS

MANAMA/LONDON, Aug 24: Tears streaming down their faces, families of victims of the Gulf Air crash shook their heads in disbelief as they left a hotel room in Bahrain on Thursday after looking at pictures to identify the bodies of their loved ones.

The victims of the Wednesday night crash, in which all 143 people aboard died, appeared to include many families with young children.

A list of the names of people killed, published by the airline early on Thursday, showed a large number with the same surname. Several regional media reports spoke of entire families who died.

"I lost my pregnant wife and one-and-half-year-old son. They were on holiday in Egypt," said a distraught Bahraini as he waited to identify pictures of the bodies of his family.

The Gulf Air Airbus 320 crashed into the sea off Bahrain as it approached the airport. Bahraini officials said on Thursday all the bodies have been recovered.

The grief-stricken relatives huddled together in the foyer of the Manama hotel. Women sobbed and men tried in vain to comfort them.

Others recited verses from the the Koran. One by one they slowly went into a room where Gulf Air officials showed them photographs of the bodies so they could identify their relatives. All emerged sobbing.

The families were being taken later to identify the bodies at morgues of several hospitals.

One man said his relative, a member of the consultative Shura Council in Bahrain, died along with his wife and two children. Another man said two of his relatives were killed.

A Bahraini official had earlier said the first 70 bodies to be recovered were those of children who were on the doomed flight from Cairo to Bahrain.

Many Gulf and expatriate families usually return to their homes in the region around this time of the year to prepare for the new school year at the end of summer holidays abroad.

Gulf Air said it was flying to Manama relatives of the 63 Egyptian victims so they could identify the bodies.

Cairo airport officials said 134 relatives would travel to Manama. Bahraini authorities had waived visa requirements. The Egyptians were issuing passports on the spot for those who lacked them.

"I lost my son," said a 55-year-old man who broke down in tears as he scanned a newspaper report on the tragedy. "I asked him to stay two more days, but he told me he should go back to prepare for the the new academic year."

Gulf Air's acting Vice-President for Personnel Ali Ahmadi -- himself fighting back tears -- told reporters at the hotel some bodies might be difficult to identify.

"Apart from identifying the bodies, some of the families have already requested to take the bodies to their home countries," he said.

"Because of the nature of the accident, some bodies may be difficult to identify," he added.

Most of the victims in the photographs were in body bags with only disfigured faces showing. Some faces looked frozen with fear.

Ahmadi said the bodies would be taken to Mina Salman Port in Manama where families would be able to collect them. Most of the plane's passengers were Arabs but there were also a few Westerners.

LONDON: Meanwhile, the possibility of an engine fault is one of the points of focus for investigators after witness reports.

One witness reported a flash of light from an engine before the jet plunged into the sea. Another witness reported hearing an explosion.

Bahraini television initially quoted unidentified officials as saying the plane had crashed after an engine caught fire. A Gulf Air statement made no mention of this, however.

Details on the ultimate cause of the crash depend on painstaking study of the wreckage and data from equipment such as the "black box" flight and voice recorders giving details of the plane's last minutes in the air.

The maker, Airbus Industrie, said in a statement on Wednesday night that the plane was powered by two CFM56-5 engines. "The CFM56 has an excellent reputation for reliability, and it seems an unlikely contributor to a crash," said Australian aviation expert Gerard Frawley.

The CFM56 is a popular engine, powering thousands of A320s, A340s and Boeing 737s.

In fact, modern turbofan engines rarely cause aircraft crashes.

Airbus Industrie declined to speculate on what might have caused the crash and was sending a team of specialists to Bahrain to help with the investigation.