Only Traces Remain of Jet Crash Off Bahrain

A man’s black shoe, a plastic sandal and bits of yellow foam padding bobbed Thursday in the waters off this tiny island nation, where families were burying loved ones a day after Gulf Air Flight 72 crashed, killing all 143 aboard.

Bahraini authorities and U.S. Navy divers based in the Persian Gulf recovered both the flight data and cockpit voice recorders near where the plane slammed into shallow water off Bahrain’s shore. Neither recorder appeared damaged, according to Bahrain’s civil defense chief, James Windsor, who received the cockpit voice recorder Thursday from U.S. Navy divers who had brought it to shore.

Authorities were awaiting the arrival of experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board for help with the Bahraini-led investigation. Six French government experts and an Airbus Industrie representative flew in Thursday evening.

Ali Ahmedi, a spokesman and an acting vice president for Gulf Air, said it was too early to speculate on what caused the plane to crash as it circled the airport where it was scheduled to land. But he said there was no indication that the pilot was anticipating an emergency.

Gulf Air said 135 passengers and eight crew members were on board. They consisted of 64 Egyptians, 36 Bahrainis, 12 Saudi Arabians, nine Palestinians, six from the United Arab Emirates, three Chinese, two British, two Omanis, and one each from the United States, Canada, Kuwait, Sudan, Australia, the Philippines, Poland, India and Morocco.

The American killed in the crash was 31-year-old Seth J. Foti, a diplomatic courier carrying classified information, the State Department said.

Foti had joined the service 14 months ago, spokesman Richard Boucher said. He said he did not know what Foti had with him when the plane went down.

Thirty-six of the 143 victims were children, officials said. All appeared to have been traveling with their families. Many families in the region are ending vacations at this time of year, which could account for the large number of children aboard.

In waters often less than 10 feet deep, shadowy bits of wing and fuselage, mostly in small pieces, were resting on the sandy sea floor. A few recognizable pieces of the Gulf Air Airbus 320 protruded from the water: a ripped tail wing with the airline’s black, red and gold logo; skin of the fuselage with the letters LF AIR above the surface.

Most traces of the 143 victims were collected in the hours after the Cairo-to-Bahrain flight crashed Wednesday evening. Luggage and clothing that had floated to the surface were removed so that they wouldn’t be swept away with the tides.

Like the plane, many of the bodies were shattered, and relatives struggled to identify loved ones so they could claim their remains for burial.

At a hotel in the capital, Manama, relatives sobbed as a Gulf Air official, his voice choking, read out names of their loved ones listed as victims. Family members were asked to make identifications from photos taken after the bodies were recovered.