''Everybody was screaming and crying, because they weren't expecting to hear something like that,'' said George Arian, of Jersey City, N.J., who has been helping victims' families at a Newport hotel.
Arian said one relative was taken away in an ambulance after the briefing, which was closed to reporters.
All 217 people aboard the Cairo-bound flight were killed when the Boeing 767 plummeted mysteriously into the sea a half-hour after leaving New York early Sunday morning.
The Navy said its vessel Mohwak located what appeared to be the pingers for both of the plane's ''black boxes'' yesterday afternoon.
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| AP PHOTO Women pray for the victims of EgyptAir Flight 990
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Coast Guard Capt. Russell Webster said worsening weather, with seas of ''8 to 10 feet and building,'' forced the Mohawk and companion vessel Whiting to leave the debris field and head for shelter in Newport. The bad weather was expected to last two days.
Also reaching Newport was the USS Grapple, a sonar-equipped salvage ship carrying about 30 divers who will try to retrieve the black boxes and other debris from the 270-foot waters off Nantucket Island, Mass.
Navy spokesperson David Sanders said the Grapple will dock for at least 36 hours to load additional supplies, then head to a major debris field that has been located by sonar.
By yesterday afternoon, more than 150 relatives had arrived in Newport, where the search for wreckage and human remains was being coordinated. About 70 of the relatives flew in from Egypt, accompanied by 39 Egyptian aviation and government officials.
''I wish it had been me who had been sacrificed,'' EgyptAir chair Mohammed Fahim Rayan said before boarding the flight from Cairo.
The investigation is looking into all possibilities: human error, mechanical failure and sabotage. About 600 FBI agents have joined in the investigation.
Egyptian officials confirmed yesterday that 33 Egyptian military officers, including two brigadier generals, were on the plane, returning home after undergoing training in the United States. The officers' ranks had been kept off the passenger list for security reasons. Egyptian military officials have been key targets of attacks by Islamic fundamentalists.
The victims also included 106 Americans, many of them retirees embarking on tours to Egypt.
According to Arian, National Transportation Safety Board officials told relatives that identifying victims could be extremely difficult because of the small pieces being retrieved. Only one body has been recovered, and even that one was not intact.
''Everybody here from the Egyptian families expected to see his loved one, his brother, his sister, as a body that they could identify easily,'' Arian said. ''The news was a shock to all of them.''
This makes it impossible for families to follow traditional Islamic rites, which call for a ritual washing and shrouding of the body and a quick burial, usually within two days.
A morgue was set up in a gymnasium, and a team including forensic pathologists, dental experts, X-ray technicians, forensic anthropologists and the FBI disaster squad was assembled to identify the remains. The investigators may also have to use DNA.
Outside the Newport hotel where the relatives are staying, a tearful Sayed Gabr of Los Angeles held a photo of his 54-year-old sister, Fatima, as she turned to wave before boarding the doomed plane in Los Angeles.
''I came here hoping I get my sister out of the water. I'd like to take her back home - I'd like to bury her body back to Egypt,'' he said.
during a memorial service in Cedar Grove, N.J. yesterday.
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