-Caveat Lector- "Egypt's government confirmed Tuesday that 33 Egyptian military officers were on the plane. A source said they included two brigadier generals, a colonel and a major. The officers were returning to Egypt after undergoing training in the United States, part of extensive military exchanges between the two countries." "The officers' ranks had been kept off the passenger manifest for security reasons, Egyptian officials said." Interesting... --SW) Investigators not likely to recover intact bodies from EgyptAir wreckage Copyright � 1999 Nando Media Copyright � 1999 Associated Press By PAT MILTON NEWPORT, R.I. (November 2, 1999 2:58 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - Crash investigators told stunned relatives on Tuesday that they are not likely to recover intact bodies from the shattered wreckage of EgyptAir Flight 990, a spokesman for the families said. Some relatives screamed or fainted when they heard the news. "Everybody was screaming and crying, because they weren't expecting to hear something like that," said George Arian, an Egyptian community leader from Jersey City, N.J., who has been acting as a spokesman for the families and described what happened behind closed doors. An ambulance was brought to their hotel in case any needed medical care after the grim briefing by National Transportation Safety Board officials. About 80 relatives arrived in Newport on Monday, and 132 people - including the chairman of EgyptAir and several Egyptian aviation investigators - landed Tuesday. The USS Grapple, carrying divers who will try to retrieve the plane's flight data, cockpit voice recorders and debris, arrived in Newport this afternoon from Norfolk, Va. A signal believed to be from one of the "black boxes" was detected Monday by Coast Guard searchers, who also found the first large piece of wreckage from the plane. The search is concentrated 60 miles south of Nantucket Island in water some 270 feet deep. The boxes could provide key clues for hundreds of investigators trying to determine why the Cairo-bound Boeing 767 plunged 33,000 feet without warning into the sea early Sunday, a half hour after leaving Kennedy International Airport in New York. All 217 people on board were killed. According to Arian, NTSB officials told relatives at Tuesday's briefing that identifying victims could be extremely difficult because of the small size of the human remains being retrieved. Only one body has been recovered, and even that one was not intact. "Everybody here from the Egyptian families expected to see his loved one, his brother, his sister, as a body that they could identify easily," Arian said. "The news was a shock to all of them." The investigation is expected to take months and cover many areas, from potential human error and mechanical failure to the possibility of sabotage. Authorities say there is no evidence suggesting foul play. About 600 FBI agents from New York, Los Angeles and other bureaus were involved in the investigation. The FBI took a bomb-sniffing dog to an unidentified Los Angeles hotel after an EgyptAir crew member complained to management that a briefcase had been tampered with, CBS News reported Monday. The dog reacted to sugar in a hotel room, The New York Times reported today, citing a law enforcement source. The sugar and loose wires found in the room are being analyzed, but investigators reportedly don't believe there was ever a bomb or bomb material in the room. Egypt's government confirmed Tuesday that 33 Egyptian military officers were on the plane. A source said they included two brigadier generals, a colonel and a major. The officers were returning to Egypt after undergoing training in the United States, part of extensive military exchanges between the two countries. The officers' ranks had been kept off the passenger manifest for security reasons, Egyptian officials said. FBI investigators in Newport said they had no information suggesting that the presence of Egyptian military officers might have made the flight a sabotage target. The victims also included 106 Americans, many of them retirees embarking on group tours to the Nile River region of Egypt. Across Narragansett Bay from Newport, crash debris and human remains were being unloaded at Quonset Point, a former Navy base where investigators will try to reconstruct the shattered plane. A temporary mortuary was being set up in a Quonset Point gymnasium, and a team including forensic pathologists, dental experts, X-ray technicians, forensic anthropologists, and the FBI disaster squad was deployed to help identify the remains. The Whiting, a vessel normally used to survey ocean coastal waters and make nautical charts, arrived at the crash site early this morning with computer equipment that will analyze winds, tides and currents to determine where wreckage may drift. Its side-scan sonar - essential during the TWA and Swissair crashes - emits sound and analyzes echoes as part of the search. The Coast Guard, fearing bad weather by tonight, has stepped up its search for debris and human remains. Debris collected so far - some of it by student sailors from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy - includes shoes, purses and twisted, sodden teddy bears. None of the retrieved debris has any burn marks that might indicate a fire or explosion, search officials said. Government rules require the capsules holding flight data and cockpit voice recorders be able to withstand pressure at 20,000 feet under water and resist corrosion from salt water for 30 days. The pinging sounds are supposed to be emitted every second for 30 days. The sonar-equipped Grapple helped retrieve wreckage from the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 off New York's Long Island and the 1998 crash of Swissair Flight 111 off Nova Scotia. But Jim Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said divers face an especially daunting task this time. Flight 990 crashed in water twice as deep as Flight 800. The plane's co-pilot, Adel Anwar, had been on his way back to Egypt to get married Friday. Eager to help with wedding preparations, he had swapped shifts and took a colleague's place in the cockpit that fateful night. "It was just another regular flight," Anwar's tearful brother, Tarek, said in Cairo. "Or so we thought." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steve Wingate California Director SKYWATCH INTERNATIONAL Anomalous Images and UFO Files http://www.anomalous-images.com DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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