FAMILIES of the 133 French tourists killed when a plane crashed into the Red Sea arrived in Egypt yesterday to say goodbye to their loved ones as the slow search continues for the aircraft's black boxes.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin will also travel to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to represent his government at two ceremonies to honour the dead.

A senior French naval officer said on Tuesday one of the flight recorders from the Egyptian Boeing 737 that plunged into the deep sea near the diving resort of Sharm el-Sheikh had been roughly located, but could not be reached by equipment on site.

The black boxes record technical data about the flight and conversations between pilots and should help explain what caused Saturday's crash, which killed all 148 people on board.

French Ambassador to Egypt Jean-Claude Cousseran said the two memorial services on Thursday, one on land and one near the crash site at sea, could help the families come to terms with their pain and grief.

The French Navy has sent for more specialised equipment that can dive to depths of 600 to 800 metres (2,000 to 2,600 ft), where they say they have approximately located one black box.

Safety record

?It could take up to one week to get the equipment?, said French Rear Admiral Jacques Mazars, who is leading the search.

The US Navy recovered a flight recorder in 1996 from a plane that crashed off the Dominican Republic from a depth of 2,195 metres. Professional divers can go to about 250 metres.

Efforts to pinpoint the exact location of the black boxes continued on Wednesday. But Sameh Halawa, director of Sharm el-Sheikh Search and Rescue, said there had been no further progress.

Egypt has said Saturday's crash was caused by a technical fault and has ruled out a terror attack. France has also said there is no reason to suspect an attack and says it gives little credence to a previously unknown Islamic group's claim to have brought down the plane.

Egypt has defended the safety record of Flash Airlines, operators of the plane, but Switzerland has said it banned the Egyptian company from its airspace on safety grounds. Swiss authorities said they found two Flash aircraft unsafe in 2002. Flash Chairman Mohamed Nour denies the ban was safety related.

French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien said on Tuesday important revisions had been carried out on the Flash planes in Norway and Morocco in December 2002 and January 2003.

He also said Germany conducted a global evaluation of the airline's safety in the autumn and deemed it satisfactory.

Poland's aviation authorities said on Tuesday they had barred Flash Airlines as unsafe until mid-2002, when the firm was declared safe. Flash's Nour said he had no information on the Polish ban.

Opheera McDoom