Tribute to Red Sea crash victims
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France's deputy foreign minister Renaud Muselier tosses flowers into the sea.
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Egyptian charter plane crashes in the Red Sea.
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SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (CNN) -- France's deputy minister of foreign affairs has tossed flowers into the Red Sea over the site of a deadly charter plane crash that killed at least 148 people.
Most of those who died in Saturday's crash were French tourists on their way back to Paris from the resort Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Search teams worked throughout the night off the coast of the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, where the Boeing 737 crashed early Saturday with 148 people on board. Officials say there were no survivors.
France has sent several military airplanes, a submarine and a military ship from Djibouti with well-equipped personnel to help in the recovery efforts, France's deputy foreign minister Renaud Muselier said Sunday.
Muselier was ferried out to the recovery site, where he tossed flowers over the water to honor the victims.
The crash appeared to have resulted from a technical problem, and there was no indication of terrorist involvement, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and Civil Aviation Minister Ahmed Shafiq said.
At a news conference, Maher called the crash a "tragic accident."
The French Foreign Ministry said the dead included 133 French nationals.
Muselier flew to Sharm el-Sheikh to meet with victims' families and Egyptian authorities. Other relatives in France are expected to arrive in the Egyptian town later in the week on an aircraft provided by the French government.
French terrorism investigators said they were not planning to open an inquiry.
The Flash Airlines plane had been due to fly to Cairo and then on to Paris.
Officials said the aircraft took off at 4:45 a.m. Saturday (9:45 p.m. Friday ET), climbed to 5,000 feet, turned left as planned and then changed course before plunging into the sea -- with no word from the pilot.
French Transport Secretary Dominique Bussereau said the plane apparently tried to turn back toward Sharm el-Sheikh shortly before it went down.
Shafiq agreed. "Just two minutes or let us say three minutes after takeoff, we imagine that the pilot has discovered something which is abnormal in the control and the serviceability of the aircraft in general, he changed his plan maybe again trying to land again in the same airport," he said.
Witnesses said they heard a loud explosion.
Amr Aboulfath, chairman of the South Sinai Association for Diving, said the aircraft went down in an area of the Red Sea over the Syrian-African rift, a deep 75 million-year-old crack in the earth.
He said the bulk of the wreckage settled at a depth of 800 to 1,000 meters (2,600 to 3,300 feet), too deep for scuba divers to reach.
Aboulfath said his organization was on the scene by about 5 a.m. or 6 a.m.and had been working with assistance from the Egyptian military and the air force.
Workers are removing passengers' belongings from the water.
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Divers and searchers aboard more than 40 boats used sonar to scour the debris field, located about eight miles (11 km) south of the seaside airport, looking for survivors. But participants in the collaborative effort between the Egyptian military and local divers reported finding only small pieces of the plane, luggage and body parts.
France will cooperate with Egyptian authorities in the investigation into the cause of the crash and the French Ministry of Aviation will help transport bodies back to France and retrieve the remains of the plane, said Maher.
In Washington, the National Transportation Safety Board said that, at the request of the Egyptian government, it was sending a representative to assist in the investigation.
The Egyptian charter airline company is based in Cairo and operated two Boeing 737-300s, both made in 1993. It is part of Flash Group, which offers vacation packages across Egypt.
"Safety and reliability are the motto of the company," its Web site said. "Each flight will be an enjoyable journey."
Each of its planes was insured for $550 million by El Shark Insurance Company, based in Egypt, it said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his family were vacationing in Sharm el-Sheikh, at the time of the crash.
-- CNN Correspondents Sandy Petrykowski in Sharm el-Sheikh, Jim Bittermann in Paris, and CNN Radio's Ninette Sosa contributed to this report.
