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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 August 2000 Issue No. 495 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 August 2000 Issue No. 495
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Finding the 'truth' of Flight 990
By Thomas Gorguissian
A LENGTHY report made public last Friday presents no conclusive answers as to why EgyptAir Flight 990 plummeted on 31 October off the eastern coast of the United States. Jim Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), released the 1,665-page investigative report, pledging that "We will continue to work with the Egyptian officials to find the truth."
Mohamed Fahim Rayan
On the Egyptian side, Captain Mohsen El-Messiri, head of the Egyptian investigation team, told reporters: "Additional work remains to be done, particularly in assessing the design of the Boeing 767's elevator control system and gaining additional radar information, before the cause of this tragic accident can be determined."
At a press conference held later the same day, Egypt's Transport and Civil Aviation Minister Ibrahim El-Demiri said that the NTSB evidence report, or docket, "holds nobody responsible for the crash." He indicated that the docket did not cite specific causes for the crash, adding that that stage of the analysis has not yet been reached. The minister told reporters that technical teams of the participating sides will hold a meeting today.
According to informed sources, the draft of the final report may be ready within five to six weeks, and it will be reviewed by the Egyptian side before it is released near the end of this year.
As in the past 10 months, leaks to the press cast shadows on the official accounts of both the American and Egyptian sides. The same day that the NTSB released the docket, USA Today published a front-page story quoting FBI reports alleging that co-pilot Gamil El-Batouti was involved in lewd activities in New York's Hotel Pennsylvania. Egyptians were infuriated by what they viewed as a "senseless and disturbing story." Ambassador Nabil Fahmi spoke to the NTSB chairman that morning. Hall later told reporters: "[Fahmi] strongly expressed the Egyptian government's understandable displeasure at the leak of factual information from the official docket of this investigation. I share his displeasure. This is a breach of our investigative process." Hall also mentioned that he had spoken to FBI Director Louis Freeh and they both agreed that "we will conduct an inquiry as to who leaked this information, and if we can identify the individual or individuals who leaked this information, we will take appropriate action."
"Any speculation from the media affects the investigation because it feeds the people with ideas that are groundless," El-Messiri told Al-Ahram Weekly. "Even the people who are conducting the investigation are discouraged when they hear something like that. Maybe now that the docket is open, and everyone can read what is in the docket, they will be comforted."
The American press in general is still inclined toward the theory of a "deliberate act" by co-pilot El-Batouti that may have caused the aircraft to crash. Various newspapers picked up parts of reports on the behaviour and performance of the co-pilot. They also focused attention on how many times the phrase Tawakalt ala Allah (I rely on God) was muttered by El-Batouti.
Shaker Kelada, EgyptAir's vice-president for Safety, responded: "There is nothing on the cockpit voice recorder [CVR] or the flight data recorder [FDR] to indicate that Flight 990 was intentionally crashed into the ocean."
The process of transcribing the cockpit voice recorder "was no small task," conceded Hall.
He said that a group of specialists usually require about 16 hours to produce a transcript of a 30-minute cockpit voice recorder tape. In the case of EgyptAir Flight 990, the group laboured for 130 hours to prepare the transcript. That group, as the chairman of the NTSB explained to reporters, produced two transcripts of the cockpit voice recorder tape. "The first is a transcript of what was actually spoken, both the original English, which was used in radio transmissions, and the original Arabic. The second is a translation of the Arabic into English," Hall said.
The transcripts were prepared by a team of experts from all sides and approved of by all participants, including the Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority and EgyptAir.
Hall indicated in one of his answers to reporters' questions that the board had decided that a public hearing would not be held on the crash because, as he said, "they believe there are no unresolved safety issues that require such a forum. The board members agreed to this recommendation. I cannot speak for the other members as to why they did not want a hearing, but for myself, I agreed with the staff's reasoning." This was interpreted by the press to mean that the NTSB still believes that there was no mechanical failure.
Egyptians disagree with this conclusion. "We still have some issues that remain unresolved and they concern the elevator control system and the radar information, and we need this information in order to complete our investigation," said El-Messiri.
The Egyptian pilot stressed the importance of this information. "This aircraft nearly reached the speed of sound, and this information is not available even for the Boeing people," he said. "We have to do some work, do a wind tunnel or use a computer, to develop this information."
The technical review meeting, which will take place today, is the next step to follow the release of the docket and Captain El-Messiri said that all parties will participate. "It's not only us; all the parties involved, the Boeing people, the FAA, the EgyptAir people and any party [who would] like to join, so they all sit at one table and they discuss the technical information."
Over the past few days, both the Egyptian and the American sides have avoided confrontations. Leaks have been condemned and the need for cooperation to obtain the truth was agreed upon repeatedly, at least in public. No one, however, has been able to piece together the puzzle of the ill-fated EgyptAir Flight 990.
Related stories:
A non-American cause
Boeing coverup? 29 June - 5 July 2000
Tail unit scenario gains credence 2 - 8 December 1999
Was it sabotage? 25 Nov. - 1 Dec. 1999
Public outrage over suicide leak 25 Nov. - 1 Dec. 1999
'We need to know' 4 - 10 November 1999
Unravelling the tragedy 4 - 10 November 1999Related sites:
The National Transportation Safety Board
Egypt Air
