US Blames Co-Pilot for Crash of Egypt Air Flight 990

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, March 22, 2002

US Blames Co-Pilot for Crash of Egypt Air Flight 990

The United States transportation safety authorities on Thursday blamed the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 in 1999 on its co-pilot without giving reasons for his actions.

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The United States transportation safety authorities on Thursday blamed the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 in 1999 on its co-pilot without giving reasons for his actions.

In its final report on the crash of the Boeing 767, the National Transportation Safety Board said the copilot, Gameel El-Batouty, was alone in the cockpit when he disconnected the autopilot and sent the plane downward.

The plane plunged into the sea off the Massachusetts coast on October 31, 1999, soon after it took off from New York en route to Cairo. All 217 people aboard were killed.

"There was no evidence of any airplane system malfunction, conflicting air traffic, or other event that would have prompted these actions," the report said.

The plane began to plummet after El-Batouty took control, the report said. While the pilot, Mahmoud el-Habashy, tried to bring the plane out of its dive, El-Batouty continued to keep it heading downward and shut off the engines, it said.

Egypt has rejected the theory that a suicide action was behind the tragedy, insisting that mechanical problems with the 767's flight control system might have been to be blamed.

EgyptAir insists that similar altitude control problem has been seen in Boeing 767s in the past, adding that many other possibilities also remain to be looked at.

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