US News

EGYPTAIR CRASH PROBE STILL ; MIRED IN POLITICS

A full year after EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed into the Atlantic, killing all 217 people aboard, the tragedy remains stuck in a political quagmire.

In the days after the New York-to-Cairo flight crashed last Halloween, the National Transportation Safety Board found no evidence of a mechanical failure and the FBI’s initial findings pointed to a criminal act, federal law-enforcement sources said.

But behind the scenes, the Egyptian government successfully lobbied to keep the probe from being turned over to the FBI – the normal course of action when no mechanical cause is discovered, the sources said.

The crash has been blamed on a deliberate act by relief co-pilot Gameel Batouty.

“There’s no question this guy dove the plane into the Atlantic,” said veteran lawyer Aaron Broder, who represents the families of two victims in a lawsuit. “The United States government is clearly sacrificing truth and honesty for the sake of the Egyptians.”

Broder said public hearings were needed to provide answers to the public and closure to the victims’ families.

But he said the United States needs the Egyptians as allies more than ever as tension in the Middle East has reached a fever pitch.

If the FBI concluded the Boeing 767 went down as the result of a vainglorious act of murder and suicide, it could only hurt the airline in court, Broder said.

EgyptAir lost an estimated $60 million in 1998 as tourists avoided Egypt in the wake of a terrorist attack that killed 58 tourists the year before.

On Aug. 11, the NTSB released a massive, 1,665-page document that offered no proof of mechanical failure. But there remains no release date for a final draft of the report.

The cockpit voice recorder picked up Batouty repeating the Muslim prayer “I rely on God” while the flight-data recorder showed the auto-pilot was switched off and the engines shut down.

As the plane nose-dived before hitting the ocean off Nantucket, the cockpit recorder picked up the pilot entering the cabin and pleading with Batouty to help him pull the plane up.

The data recorder shows opposing maneuvers. “One of the elevators was up and the other was down,” NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said. “We still don’t know the cause of that yet.”

Egyptian Ambassador Mahmoud Allam was en route to Rhode Island to commemorate the crash yesterday and could not be reached. Repeated calls to EgyptAir were not answered.