On 31 October 1999, at about 0152 EST, EgyptAir Flight 990, a Boeing 767, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean around 60 miles south of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 people on board...

As head of Egyptian investigators probing the crash of Flight 990 Shaker Qilada remembers how his team fought a tough battle with the Americans

At the time of the accident, Ahmed Shafiq was commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Air Force. More than 30 Air Force officers and technicians were aboard the doomed flight. In 2002 Shafiq took over the Aviation Ministry where he supervised the last phase of the crash probe conducted by American and Egyptian investigators

EgyptAir Chairman Hussein Massoud prefers to think how Egyptian air transport benefited from the airline's disaster