EgyptAir calls on media to be considerate to families of plane crash victims

EgyptAir has called on media outlets to be “considerate” to the familes of those lost when the airline’s flight 804 crashed in the Mediterranean on Thursday, saying that some of the relatives were angered by the use of the deceased in the press.

EgyptAir said families of the victims told airline officials on Saturday that some of their relatives’ names were being used in the media and online to solicit donations, which the families found unacceptable.

EgyptAir Chairman Safwat Moslem and his vice, Ahmed Adel, met with families of those lost in the incident on Saturday at a hotel near Cairo’s international airport. With the help of an unnamed foreign expert, the civil aviation ministry said that the relatives were briefed on the process of recovering the bodies of the deceased from the plane.

All 66 people on board flight MS804 are assumed to have died when the plane was lost over the Mediterranean sea.

The Egyptian military reported that it had located debris, personal belongings, plane seats and human remains in the Mediterranean on Friday, near the spot where the plane disappeared from radar.

EgyptAir said the relatives were told that the process of retrieval may take a long time, and that DNA tests could be necessary for identification, which would also take week.

source: Reuters