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Probe eyes crew { November 12 1999 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.bostonherald.com/bostonherald/nat/plan11121999.htmhttp://www.bostonherald.com/bostonherald/nat/plan11121999.htm
Crash probe eyes flight crew; Probe focuses on odd crew behavior
Boston Herald; Boston, Mass.; Nov 12, 1999
Friday, November 12, 1999
by Laura Brown and Jules Crittenden
Federal criminal investigators probing the fatal crash of EgyptAir 990 are focusing on unusual pre-flight behavior by the plane's flight crew and are actively pursuing leads that suggest the disaster "was not an accident," a source close to the investigation said yesterday.
"The accident side has come up empty-handed so far, "the source said. "However, the other side has been pursuing some very interesting leads that this aircraft was in danger."
Information unearthed in the wake of the Oct. 31 crash indicated that at least one member of the flight crew had reason to believe that "something was going to happen to the airplane," the source added.
National Transportation Safety Board officials leading the investigation stress that they have not ruled out any possible cause for the crash that killed 217 people.
"We are looking at the entire crew . . . looking at the passengers . . . all aspects of what could be involved in this. That includes financial problems and personal situations of those on board," said a law enforcement source. "There is not a single thing to indicate a blast or criminal activity. We are looking at various scenarios involving people in the cockpit."
But investigators discovered that one member of the flight crew was so concerned something might happen to the plane that the crew member left money and a message for another crew member's family, the first source said.
One of the flight attendants, Hassan Sherif, 26, called his wife Rania from New York just before he boarded the flight, saying "there was something wrong with the plane," and that he was "very worried."
But it was unclear yesterday which crew members investigators might be focusing on. There were a total of 18 EgyptAir employees - 14 of whom were listed as crew members - on board the doomed jet.
In addition to Capt. Ahmed al Habashy, who commanded the flight, there was another captain and two flight officers listed as crew members. A third captain and three flight officers were listed as non-fare passengers. It is unclear who was serving as co-pilot or why an unusually large number of officers were listed as crew members. Ten flight attendants were also on board.
The flight data recorder, recovered late Tuesday, gave no indication that the Boeing 767 had mechanical problems. In fact, the data that was released Wednesday shows the aircraft was flying normally at a cruising altitude of 33,000 feet until the autopilot was disengaged.
The plane then began a "controlled descent" to 19,000 feet at subsonic speed, NTSB Chairman James Hall said.
Hall's comments about the plane's descent suggested that someone at the controls deliberately headed the aircraft downward.
Aviation experts say the information could suggest that pilots may have been responding to an onboard emergency such as rapid decompression by trying to lose altitude rapidly.
Earlier radar information suggested the aircraft was diving at a rate of more than 24,000 feet per minute.
No other details from the flight data recorder's readings have been released, and officals said they were "still in the process of recovering data from the remaining five to 10 seconds."
The NTSB said last week that radar data showed the plane dropped rapidly to 16,700 feet before quickly climbing back up to 24,000 feet, then plummeting into the ocean. All 217 people on board are presumed dead.
The cockpit voice recorder is considered critical to the investigation, sources said. Only with the conversation between pilots and other noises can investigators tell what was going on in the cockpit.
The search for that second "black box" was called off yesterday because of high seas, but salvage workers hope to resume the hunt for the crucial recorder in the waters off Nantucket today .
"Right now it is a routine flight, they disengaged the autopilot, started a controlled dive and fell into the ocean," said one source. "We really hope the voice recorder will cast light on it."
Officials have refused to speculate about whether the crash may have been caused by terrorism, mechanical problems or human error.
Sherif was one of two flight attendants on the plane who were best friends who had just registered their marriages to a pair of sisters in Egypt but had not yet formally wed. The registering of a marriage in Egypt customarily takes place in advance of the wedding.
The flight's lead pilot, Ahmed al Habashy, and flight officer, Gameel al Battouti, were both within months of retirement, news reports indicate. Capt. Hatem Roushdy, chief pilot of EgyptAir's fleet of 767s, was on board as a non-fare passenger.
News accounts shortly after the disaster indicate that flight officer Adel Anwar, who was listed as a crew member, was due to be married in a matter of days, but suggest those plans were on track and that Anwar and his fiancee were eagerly preparing for the wedding.
Anwar had reportedly changed shifts with another pilot to get home sooner. Meanwhile, his bride-to-be had quit her job at a travel agency on the day of the ill-fated flight in order to become a homemaker, and was reportedly packing her bags for the honeymoon and decorating the apartment they would share, according to Anwar's brother Tarek, who spoke to reporters at the airport in Cairo.
Officials have said that Navy crews have a location they are looking for the voice recorder but it is under a substantial amount of debris.
Investigators say no decision has been made on when the salvage effort will stop until after the other black box is found.
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