Crash plane passed French tests

Egypt's first lady has been among those paying tribute to the dead

The plane which crashed in Egypt on Saturday had passed a French safety check only months earlier, BBC News Online has learned.

The Flash Airlines Boeing 737 plunged into the Red Sea near Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 148 people on board.

The plane failed Swiss safety checks in October 2002, when a random test found problems severe enough to spark a complete ban from Switzerland.

But the same plane passed a French check in Toulouse in October 2003, the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) said on Monday.

"This was the same plane, and nothing was found to justify taking the same decision," ECAC executive secretary Raymond Benjamin told BBC News Online.

HAVE YOUR SAY Working in Sharm el-Sheikh, we are all shocked by this accident Tom Lund, Egypt/Norway Send us your comments France searches for answers

The nature of the problems found by the Swiss was not being revealed at this stage, he said, but removing an airline's authorisation to fly was the most serious step in a sliding scale of possible responses to faults.

"It is possible that between the Swiss check and other countries' checks they amended the problem," he added.

The ban by Switzerland meant Flash planes could not cross its airspace or land at its airports, although an emergency landing was later permitted at Geneva.

The BBC's Caroline Wyatt in Paris says many people are asking why Flash Airlines was allowed to continue flying to and from France after the Swiss ban.

Swiss checks found problems with the plane that crashed

French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien has confirmed that a total of three Flash airline inspections were carried out after the Swiss ban.

The first found a small problem with signs to an exit door, but the two subsequent checks "gave rise to no observation and the civil aviation authorities therefore gave permission for the aircraft to fly," he told French radio.

Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Ahmed Shafik has rejected Swiss claims of "serious shortcomings" in the Flash plane it inspected in 2002.

"These accusations are totally inaccurate," he said.

Egyptian officials have blamed the crash on mechanical failure, but junior French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau on Monday refused to rule out terrorism.

"It resembles... a typical accident on take-off, which is always a difficult phase," he said.

"Until investigators, in particular those from the Accident Investigation Bureau which have been in place since yesterday (Sunday), have technical information, we can't make any definitive hypotheses" about the crash."

Rescuers are still trying to locate the plane's two flight recorders - containing cockpit conversation recordings and technical data - from the sea bed.