Grieving families are sheltered from the press by sheets as officials give them details of the search-and-recovery effort

November 2, 1999
Web posted at: 3:01 p.m. EDT (1901 GMT)

In this story: 'The news was a shock' Sisters both engaged to men on Flight 990 crew Crew member felt 'something bad' would happen 'I believe it's an act of God' RELATED STORIES, SITES

NEWPORT, Rhode Island (CNN) -- After traveling close to the place where their loved ones were lost, relatives of EgyptAir crash victims were stunned to hear Tuesday it's unlikely any more bodies will be recovered intact.

EgyptAir hotlines EgyptAir has set up the following numbers for families and friends of those on the flight to get information In the U.S.: (800) 243-1094 Outside the U.S.: (202) 245-2244 (202) 244-1460 (202) 418-3690    VIDEO One passenger on EgyptAir 990 was a vivacious, beloved 82-year-old woman. CNN's Greg LaMotte reports. (November 2) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Rick Lockridge reports on the technology used in a deep water recovery mission Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K Use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery.    Windows Media Real    28 K 80 K     ALSO Passengers and crew on EgyptAir Flight 990 Relatives of EgyptAir crash victims gather near search site High-tech sleuths to work deep in ocean Deja vu for the USS Grapple     MESSAGE BOARD Message Board: Plane crashes

"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, New Jersey, who has been acting as a spokesman for the families.

EgyptAir Flight 990 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off the Massachusetts coast early Sunday morning, about half an hour after leaving New York's Kennedy International Airport. Before Tuesday's grim news, the Egyptians had hoped searchers could recover the bodies of their relatives.

In all, 217 people -- primarily Americans, Egyptians and Canadians -- perished on the Cairo-bound Boeing 767.

The grieving Egyptians are gathered at a hotel in Newport, the coastal Rhode Island town where the National Transportation Safety Board has set a command post.

An ambulance was brought to the hotel in case any family members needed medical care after the grim briefing by NTSB officials. The briefing was closed to the media.

Over 100 relatives have arrived in Rhode Island in two groups. Some of the Egyptians got to Newport on Monday. Others went there Tuesday after taking an early morning EgyptAir flight from Cairo.

Both groups were flown to Rhode Island on charter flights from Kennedy Airport in New York.

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."

Tuesday's arrivals include sisters Soha and Rania Rida who were engaged to two EgyptAir cabin crew members, Mohammed Galal and Hasan Toufic. By a cruel twist of fate, both men were serving on Flight 990 when it plummeted from the sky.

The Rida sisters were the only women in group that left Cairo early Tuesday morning. Sobbing silently, they climbed the steps into the aircraft as other relatives followed in a single file.

"I wish I had been on (Flight 990). I wish it had been me who had been sacrificed," EgyptAir chairman Mohammed Fahim Rayan told the relatives before boarding the flight with them.

He headed a delegation of 39 government officials -- including civil aviation chairman Mamdouh Hishmat and Murad Shawqi, chairman of the Aviation Safety Board -- who traveled with the families of the victims to the United States. The rest of the officials were from state-run EgyptAir.

The officials plan to help in the investigation and assist families of the victims.

The EgyptAir officials on today's flight had pinned black ribbons on their chest pockets with a tag saying: "Team assisting families of victims."

"I still can't believe what happened," said Rania, who was engaged to Toufic.

George Arian says the news that few, if any, intact bodies are expected to be found was "a shock" to the families

She said her fiance had called her the night before the crash and told her he had bad feelings about the flight.

"He said, `I feel that something bad is going to happen,' " Rania murmured, clutching a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

Abdel-Razik Mohammed Munir, who was going to look for his nephew, Mohammed Mahmoud el-Sayed, a navy lieutenant, said: "I am going to see what there is to find." He then plaintively asked Rayan, the airline chairman, "Do you know what kind of condition the corpses will be in? I am afraid they might be decomposed and hard to identify."

Some relatives who did not have passports were issued the documents on Monday. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo scrapped normal procedures to speed up the issuing of visas.

Families of Flight 990 victims arrive in Providence, Rhode Island

For Sayed Hussein, the time his younger brother spent with him at his California home were the best of his life. When his brother left to return to their native Egypt, Sayed hugged him and said: "Take care of yourself."

Within hours, his brother, Ismail, a Flight 990 passenger, was dead.

Sayed Hussein, 37, lives in Laguna Beach, California, where he owns a business that specializes in repairing European cars. His 33-year-old brother owned a used car business in Cairo.

"Whatever happened, I believe it's an act of God," Hussein said Monday after arriving in Rhode Island.

Hussein has lived in the United States for a dozen years. He visits Egypt once a year but this was the longest time he had ever spent with his brother, and he got to know him better than ever.

"It was the best 5 1/2 months of my life," he said. "This is difficult for all of us, but we believe in God. God gives and takes."

Correspondent Gary Tuchman, Reporter Deborah Feyerick and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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