Two people leave the psychological unit set up in a hotel near Charles de Gaulle Airport on Saturday hours after the crash. (AFP)

Paris, Jan. 3 (Reuters): Entire families, including many children, were among at least 133 French tourists killed in a plane crash off the Egyptian coast while heading home after a New year holiday in the sun.

Numb with shock and their faces stained with tears, 35 relatives of some of those aboard the Egyptian airliner that crashed into the Red Sea early today gathered at Paris’ main airport to grieve and talk to counsellors.

“They are in shock,” said Michel Clerel, who is in charge of counselling for relatives of the victims, told reporters at a hotel near the airport, where the plane had been due to land at 0800 GMT today.

“They were waiting for family members to come back from a holiday, then it was brutally announced to them that they had died,” said Clerel, the head of medical services at Charles de Gaulle Airport.

One man said his Moroccan aunt — a 47-year-old mother of five — had been on the flight.

“When I learned about the news I thought this cannot have happened,” said Mohammed Hjiaj. “I want to go to Egypt as soon as possible to identify the body.”

Clerel told reporters many children, who had been holidaying with their families, were on board the plane and that entire families, including one of seven, were wiped out when the plane crashed shortly after take-off from the sun-kissed resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

A rescue team member said there were no survivors of the Flash Airlines charter plane crash, which Egyptian authorities said was caused by a technical fault and not a terrorist attack.

French deputy transport minister Dominique Bussereau said the plane had crashed after it had problems taking off and tried to turn back.

French President Jacques Chirac expressed his shock after the crash, while Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin rushed to the airport to comfort families when he heard the news.

“There is a particularly horrific aspect because it effects people who were seeking rest and relaxation and instead met with a brutal death,” Raffarin told reporters at the airport, where relatives were ushered into a crisis centre away from reporters.

France’s foreign ministry said in a statement that 148 people were on board, 133 of them French tourists.

The government said it had sent deputy foreign minister Renaud Muselier to Egypt, as well as a team of police, doctors and dentists to help recover bodies and determine the cause of the crash.

The justice ministry said it had ordered French prosecutors to open a judicial inquiry for manslaughter.

Chirac’s office said the President had called his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak to obtain full details of the tragedy.

At the airport, people scoured the list of passengers on the crashed plane for names of friends and relatives.

“I am very worried. I know my daughter is due to arrive from Egypt today where she is holidaying with her fiance,” said Therese Dupont, her voice trembling.

“I came here after I saw the news, but I couldn’t find her name on the list of victims. That reassured me a bit but I still don’t know what’s happening and where she is,” she added.