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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 September 2000 Issue No. 500 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 September 2000 Issue No. 500
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Elections Development Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Special Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Clouds surrounding crash mystery clearing
By Thomas GorguissianIn the 5 October issue of The New York Review Of Books, a highly regarded intellectual publication, Elaine Scarry wrote a well studied article entitled "The Fall of EgyptAir 990" in which she discussed the possibility that electromagnetic interference was responsible for last year's crash of the Egyptian airplane. The author has previously written a similarly thorough article about the mysteries of TWA 800 and Swiss Air 111, which appeared in the 21 September issue of the same newspaper. "The uniformity of the region in which the accidents occurred suggests that the region itself, the environment external to the plane, should in each case be included among the causes to be investigated," Scarry wrote. She added: "Substantial studies by the Joint Spectrum Centre and by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have gone a long way toward reconstructing the electromagnetic environment of the first accident; but the work on behalf of TWA 800 is still incomplete, and in the cases of Swissair 111 and EgyptAir 990 it has barely begun."
EgyptAir 990, as the author mentions, "did not travel, as the other two did, on the Bette route, which hugs the Long Island coast in order to skirt the northern edge of military exercise zones W-105 and W-106." EgyptAir 990, on the other hand, "flew directly into and through military exercise zone W-106, and then crossed into exercise zone W-105, where it flew approximately 120 miles before diving irrevocably toward the sea. Its crash site lies deep within military exercise zone W-105."
When EgyptAir 990 left JFK Airport, Scarry notes, "it was initially assigned a route that would have taken it down and around the military exercise zone W-105, a route described by the air controller as "Shipp Linnd Lacks Dovey." Later, this was altered.
The author also raises the following question: "Was EgyptAir 990 the only civilian plane flying through the W-105 region, as appears to be the case in the two-hour period covered by the air controller transcripts?" And she continues: "If EgyptAir 990 was indeed the only civilian plane in the warning zone, there seems to exist a simple and straightforward explanation: it is late at night; few planes are flying; and most of those that are flying are not embarking on a transatlantic flight. There is, however, one other flight setting out on a transatlantic journey, the cargo plane El Al 2812. It prepares for takeoff almost simultaneously with EgyptAir 990. The controller begins to instruct El Al 2812, travelling to Tel Aviv by way of Frankfurt, to exit from JFK Airport by the Kennedy seven departure lane (the same gateway EgyptAir 990 flies out of). But the controller then instructs the pilot to follow a different path."
In explaining the necessity of paying attention to the possibility of electromagnetic waves, the author writes: "It is striking that the tiny handful of stark facts known about the fall of EgyptAir 990 are themselves consistent with electromagnetic interference. Here are the four facts we know. One: the plane's autopilot disconnected. Two: the plane went into a sudden steep dive. Three: the elevators on the plane's tail, the movable surfaces on the horizontal portion of the tail that control the pitch of the plane (by determining whether the plane's nose points up, down, or level), acted anomalously, moving independently rather than in coordination with each other. Four: the two engines turned off (shortly before the transponder, and presumably all other electrical systems, lost power).
"These four features of the EgyptAir 990 catastrophe are all prominent in the most important literature on electromagnetic interference, the 1988 Air Force study of military craft and the 1994 NASA study of civilian craft by Martin Shooman"
Electromagnetic interference, Scarry explains, "affects different planes in different and sometimes quirky ways because it interacts with a particular plane's greatest points of electrical vulnerability." In the case of a highly digitised plane such as EgyptAir 990's plane type, the 767, the author argues that "it could interact by introducing a false command into the autopilot, ignition, stabiliser, or other control surfaces."
The author Elaine Scarry teaches at Harvard, where she is completing a project on war and the social contract.
Reacting to the latest theory, Egyptian officials said that the door was open to examine all possibilities, provided that the American side responded to the Egyptian demand that they release all relevant information.
"Egypt is still asking the American side to provide the information it has withheld so far," Transport Minister Ibrahim El-Demeiri said. "Information regarding the tail unit, radar systems and images and the security system at JFK airport may reveal the cause of the crash."
Scarry also points out in her article how rushing to judgement and saying that co-pilot Gamil El-Batouti "suicidal" act was the cause of the crash was a grave mistake. "Little thought was given to the possibility that the pilot could have observed some problem with the plane and called on God to help him; the prayer was instead widely interpreted as voicing the intention to commit suicide and mass murder. Soon, however, the 'sinister' quality of the prayer began to erode, as did even its 'mysteriousness' or 'portentousness.' The prayer turned out to be part of the texture of everyday life, a sentence spoken by many Egyptians an estimated two hundred times a day and by many Egyptian-Americans thirty times a day."
Additional reporting by Amira Ibrahim in Cairo
Related sites:
The New York Review of Books
