Airplane Accidents Bahrain

A Gulf Air jet on a flight from Cairo slammed into the Persian Gulf on Wednesday night about four miles short of Bahrain International Airport, killing all 143 people aboard. U.S. Navy helicopters and ships based in Bahrain joined rescue efforts, and emergency workers reported early today that they had recovered all of the bodies, including those of 36 children and the crew of eight.

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.

U.S. Navy divers have retrieved the diplomatic pouches carried by an American courier who was killed in the crash of a Gulf Air jet. The divers found the "diplomatic cargo" in the shallow waters off Bahrain, said Cmdr. Jeff Gradeck, spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain. The courier, Seth J. Foti, 31, of Browntown, Va., was the only American aboard the Gulf Air jet when it crashed into the sea Wednesday.