Egyptian airport officials are preparing to receive the remains of 18 more Egyptian victims of the 1999 EgyptAir crash, whose cause is still hotly debated, an airport source said today.
The bodies are to arrive tomorrow afternoon on an EgyptAir flight from New York after having been positively identified by DNA testing, the source said.
Last year, the remains of 13 other Egyptians who died when Flight 990 crashed on October 31, 1999 off the coast of New England were returned to their homeland.
A total of 80 Egyptian passengers and crew were on the flight, but US authorities stressed at the time of the crash that it was unlikely that any intact bodies would be recovered.
A medical team will be standing on the runway as the airliner arrives to issue burial certificates on the spot, the source said.
Islamic tradition stresses the speedy burial of the dead, but a top Islamic scholar assured Egyptians on state television soon after the crash that the internment rituals were unnecessary if the body was lost at sea or otherwise missing.
Egyptian and US officials continue to dispute the cause of the accident, which killed all 217 people on board.
EgyptAir called on US authorities in April to continue investigating the crash of the flight after the preliminary report found that the co-pilot was at fault for plunging the Boeing 767 into the ocean.
EgyptAir chairman Mohamed Fahim Rayan has rejected the theory that an act of suicide by the plane's co-pilot, Gamil al-Battuti, caused the crash, and the company has called on investigators to look into a mechanical problem in the altitude control system.
AFP