Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
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MARACAIBO, Venezuela (AFP): More grieving families arrived here Saturday as a French investigator backed the theory that engine trouble caused the crash of a Martinique-bound jetliner that killed all 160 people on board.
An official from French aviation safety agency BEA echoed a theory put forth by Venezuelan officials, who had said the pilot reported trouble in both engines prior to going down.
"We have spent three full days in the wreckage, and it appears that it involved problems with the engines," Emmanuel Delbarre said.
Investigators have not yet examined the flight's two "black box" flight recorders for more information on the cause of the crash, however.
"The investigation is continuing," said Delbarre. "The black boxes are intact, but we do not know where they will go" to be analyzed, he said.
Four countries are involved in the investigation: France, Colombia, Venezuela and the United States, where the twin-engine McDonnell Douglas MD-82 aircraft was built, he said.
The charter flight carrying 152 French tourists and eight Colombian crew from Panama to the French Caribbean island of Martinique crashed Tuesday in a remote, marshy zone of northwest Venezuela, leaving no survivors.
About 350 relatives of the victims arrived on special flights Friday and Saturday in Maracaibo, the city closest to the crash site, where forensic experts were involved in the grisly process of identifying victims' remains.
Relatives attended an afternoon ceremony in which a monument commemorating the victims was unveiled. Many grappled with the harsh reality that they would be returning to Martinique without the bodies or possessions of their loved ones.
Doctors told relatives that the victims' bodies were very badly damaged by the intensity of the crash.
"The bodies are completely torn apart, and no bodies are complete," said Doctor Yves Schuliar, chief of forensic medicine.
"People have not yet been able to grasp that they will not go home with the bodies," Serge Chalon, one of the French medical psychologists who accompanied the relatives, said Friday.
France's Minister for Overseas Territories, Francois Baroin, said it would take "several weeks" to identify the victims, in an interview with the Paris newspaper Journal du Dimanche.
Funerals were held in Colombia Saturday for seven of eight crew members whose remains were more quickly identified using dental records and repatriated Friday.
The agony was evident on the faces of the relatives in Maracaibo. "If only I could see her body, I would stop waiting," said Marie Lenogue, whose sister, Severine, was one of the tourists on the flight.
"If I don't see her, I will keep on thinking, 'Maybe she will come back tomorrow,'" Lenogue added.
The accident was the deadliest-ever air crash for France. Amid a national outpouring of sympathy, President Jacques Chirac announced that he will attend a service for the victims in a stadium in Martinique's capital, Fort-de-France, on Wednesday, where city officials expect 25,000 to 30,000 mourners.
West Caribbean Airways, the financially troubled Colombian airline that ran the charter flight, is facing criticism over its safety record. French authorities announced that their prosecutors would launch a homicide investigation into the crash.
West Caribbean on Wednesday suspended all of its flights, which have been taken over by the Colombian military and other companies.
In March, a West Caribbean Czech-built Let 410 turboprop plane crashed minutes after takeoff from the Colombian Caribbean island of Providencia, killing two crew members and six of the 12 passengers.
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