Egypt Flight No. 843 took off from Cairo International Airport on the afternoon of May 7, 2002 to Tunis Carthage International Airport in Tunis. The passengers are 68 passengers, 27 Egyptians, 16 Tunisians, 3 from Algeria, 3 from Jordan, 2 from Britain, A Boeing 737-566, led by pilot Ashraf Abdel-Aal and his assistant Khalid Odeh. It was a normal routine flight between Cairo and Tunis until the plane entered Tunisian airspace.