Posted by Michael Hull on September 09, 19100 at 08:05:01:
<<<<<< Well you need to get your facts straight! August 14, 2000 Airwise News http://news.airwise.com/stories/2000/08/966256308.html August 17, 2000 Reuters September 1,2000 Ananova
The head of the Egyptian pilots' federation yesterday accused U.S. investigators of withholding key evidence in the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 off the U.S. coast last October, according to Reuters. Walid Murad called for the release of radar images and the evidence of two pilots who said they saw missiles in the area where the plane went down, killing all 217 people on board. He told reporters that U.S. investigators said they were denying access to the radar images because they contained military secrets. "This is a weak excuse," he said. "This American stance is evidence of concealing facts, and we demand the release of these radar images and to hear the testimony of the two pilots, one German and one Jordanian, that they saw missiles where the Egyptian plane crashed," he said. EgyptAir flight 990, headed for Cairo from New York, suddenly plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on October 31. Information from the flight data and cockpit voice recorders led to assertions by some U.S. investigators that relief co-pilot Gamil al-Batouti deliberately caused the crash. Egyptian officials have rejected that line of inquiry and worked on a theory that the plane's elevator panels on the tail, which control whether the nose points up or down, may have jammed. Murad said the Egyptian pilot's federation demanded the recovery of the remaining parts of the aircraft and the completion of an investigation to determine whether there were technical problems in the tail section. By concealing and leaking information, Murad said, the U.S. investigation risked losing credibility.
EgyptAir Chairman Mohamed Fahim Rayan said on Thursday he was “99 percent sure” a technical problem and not a suicidal pilot caused an EgyptAir plane to crash last October, killing all 217 people aboard.“We are 99 percent sure that there was something (wrong) in the elevator system,”. The NTSB’s 1,665-page assessment appeared to dismiss Egyptian theories of technical problems but did mention alleged lewd behavior by the relief co-pilot Gamil al-Batouti. Rayan mocked the allegations as irrelevant, otherwise “50 percent of men would commit suicide,” he said. Rayan said the suicide theory did not fit with the plane’s controlled descent, mentioned in last week’s NTSB report. He said that the switching off of the plane’s autopilot just before its fatal descent did not constitute evidence for the theory because it had disengaged itself three times during the plane’s earlier flight from Los Angeles to New York. “There is a meeting in Washington today between the Egyptian and American sides to discuss some of the issues that the Egyptian side requested,” Demiri said, adding a “final picture” of what happened would be clear by November. “The Egyptian side has demands which must be seen through, such as radar and air traffic control information... There are mechanical issues about the hydraulic bell cranks and elevators,” he said. The Egyptian Pilots’ Federation said last week it wanted U.S. authorities to release radar images and to question an air traffic controller on duty at the time of the crash, as well as three pilots from Germany, Jordan and Britain, said to have seen missiles while flying in the area where the plane went down. Last week EgyptAir said metallurgical analysis of wreckage showed that the rivets on two of the three bell cranks in the right elevator were sheared in a direction that would force the elevator down. The rivets on the other bell crank were sheared in the opposite direction, a pattern EgyptAir said was consistent with the possible failure or jam of power control units that would cause the aircraft to pitch down. Mechanical links called bell cranks are connected to hydraulic controls that move elevators on the tail-piece. The Egyptian Pilots’ Federation said on Monday the NTSB should turn its inquiry over to a third party unless it releases what the federation views as key evidence.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_51182.html
The Egyptian pilots' union has named Bill Clinton in a lawsuit over the FBI investigation into the EgyptAir Boeing 767 crash. The union is said to be furious at leaked reports which suggest co-pilot Gamil al-Battuti crashed the plane into the Atlantic, killing 217 people, in an act of suicide. The action is being taken through the Egyptian courts and accuses investigators of ignoring other possible reasons as to why the New York to Cairo jet crashed. It calls on Mr Clinton to relaunch the inquiry and look at possibilities including one that a land-to-air missile brought down the aircraft. Union officials have delivered a copy of the lawsuit to the US embassy in Cairo reports Channel Africa News.