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EgyptAir Flight 990
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EgyptAir Flight 990
EgyptAir Flight 990 was a scheduled flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Cairo International Airport, with a stop at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. On October 31, 1999, the Boeing 767-300ER operating the route crashed into the Atlantic Ocean about 60 miles (100 km) south of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, killing all 217 passengers and crew on board, making it the deadliest aviation disaster for EgyptAir. Since the crash occurred in international waters, it was investigated by the Ministry of Civil Aviation's Egyptian Civil Aviation Agency (ECAA) and the American National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) under International Civil Aviation Organization rules. Since the ECAA lacked the resources of the NTSB, the Egyptian government asked the American government to have the NTSB handle the investigation.
Two weeks after the crash, the NTSB proposed that it hand the investigation over to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as all of the evidence that they had collected up until that point suggested that a criminal act had taken place, and that the crash was the result of an intentional act. The Egyptian authorities refused to accept this idea, and repeatedly declined the proposal to hand the investigation over to the FBI. As a result, the NTSB was forced to continue the investigation alone, despite it falling outside their investigative purview.
The NTSB found that the cause of the accident was the airplane's departure from normal cruise flight and subsequent impact with the Atlantic Ocean "as a result of the relief first officer's flight control inputs". However they were ultimately unable to determine any specific reason for his alleged actions. The ECAA independently concluded that the incident was caused by mechanical failure of the aircraft's elevator control system. The Egyptian report suggested several possibilities for the cause of the accident, focusing on the possible failure of one of the right elevator's power control units. However, the NTSB continues to dispute the findings of the ECAA report, claiming that there is no possible explanation for the flight's final movements, other than an intentional human act.
The aircraft involved was a Boeing 767-366ER, serial number 24542, registered as SU-GAP, named Thuthmosis III after a pharaoh from the 18th Dynasty. The aircraft had logged approximately 33,219 airframe hours and 7,556 takeoff and landing cycles. The aircraft, a stretched, extended-range version of the standard 767, was the 282nd 767 built. It was delivered to EgyptAir as a new aircraft on September 26, 1989, and was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney PW4060 engines.
Flight 990's cockpit crew consisted of 57-year-old Captain Ahmed El-Habashi, 36-year-old First Officer Adel Anwar, who had switched assignments with another pilot so he could return home in time for his wedding, 52-year-old relief Captain Raouf Nour El Din, 59-year-old relief First Officer Gameel Al-Batouti, and the airline's chief pilot for the Boeing 767, Captain Hatem Rushdy. Captain El-Habashi was a veteran pilot who had been with EgyptAir for 36 years and had accumulated about 14,400 total flight hours, more than 6,300 of which were on the 767. Relief First Officer Al-Batouti had close to 5,200 flight hours in the 767 and a total of roughly 12,500 hours.
Because of the 10-hour scheduled flight time, the flight required two complete flight crews, each consisting of one captain and one first officer. EgyptAir designated one crew as the "active crew" and the other as the "cruise crew", sometimes also referred to as the "relief crew". While no formal procedure specified when each crew flew the aircraft, the active crew customarily made the takeoff and flew the first four to five hours of the flight. The cruise crew then assumed control of the aircraft until about one to two hours before landing, when the active crew returned to the cockpit and assumed control of the aircraft. EgyptAir designated the captain of the active crew as the pilot-in-command of the flight.
While the cruise crew was intended to take over far into the flight, relief first officer Al-Batouti entered the cockpit and recommended that he relieve command first officer Anwar 20 minutes after takeoff. Anwar initially protested, but eventually relented.
The flight was carrying 203 passengers from seven countries: Canada, Egypt, Germany, Sudan, Syria, the United States, and Zimbabwe. Of the 217 people on board, 100 were American, 89 were Egyptian (75 passengers, 14 crew), 21 were Canadian, and seven were of other nationalities. Many of the American passengers, (of whom many were elderly) were booked with the tour group Grand Circle Travel for a 14-day trip to Egypt. Of the 203 passengers, 32 boarded in Los Angeles; the rest boarded in New York. Four were nonrevenue EgyptAir crew members. Included in the passenger manifest were 33 Egyptian military officers returning from a training exercise; among them were two brigadier generals, a colonel, a major, and four other air force officers. After the crash, newspapers in Cairo were prevented by censors from reporting the officers' presence on the flight.
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EgyptAir Flight 990
EgyptAir Flight 990 was a scheduled flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Cairo International Airport, with a stop at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. On October 31, 1999, the Boeing 767-300ER operating the route crashed into the Atlantic Ocean about 60 miles (100 km) south of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, killing all 217 passengers and crew on board, making it the deadliest aviation disaster for EgyptAir. Since the crash occurred in international waters, it was investigated by the Ministry of Civil Aviation's Egyptian Civil Aviation Agency (ECAA) and the American National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) under International Civil Aviation Organization rules. Since the ECAA lacked the resources of the NTSB, the Egyptian government asked the American government to have the NTSB handle the investigation.
Two weeks after the crash, the NTSB proposed that it hand the investigation over to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as all of the evidence that they had collected up until that point suggested that a criminal act had taken place, and that the crash was the result of an intentional act. The Egyptian authorities refused to accept this idea, and repeatedly declined the proposal to hand the investigation over to the FBI. As a result, the NTSB was forced to continue the investigation alone, despite it falling outside their investigative purview.
The NTSB found that the cause of the accident was the airplane's departure from normal cruise flight and subsequent impact with the Atlantic Ocean "as a result of the relief first officer's flight control inputs". However they were ultimately unable to determine any specific reason for his alleged actions. The ECAA independently concluded that the incident was caused by mechanical failure of the aircraft's elevator control system. The Egyptian report suggested several possibilities for the cause of the accident, focusing on the possible failure of one of the right elevator's power control units. However, the NTSB continues to dispute the findings of the ECAA report, claiming that there is no possible explanation for the flight's final movements, other than an intentional human act.
The aircraft involved was a Boeing 767-366ER, serial number 24542, registered as SU-GAP, named Thuthmosis III after a pharaoh from the 18th Dynasty. The aircraft had logged approximately 33,219 airframe hours and 7,556 takeoff and landing cycles. The aircraft, a stretched, extended-range version of the standard 767, was the 282nd 767 built. It was delivered to EgyptAir as a new aircraft on September 26, 1989, and was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney PW4060 engines.
Flight 990's cockpit crew consisted of 57-year-old Captain Ahmed El-Habashi, 36-year-old First Officer Adel Anwar, who had switched assignments with another pilot so he could return home in time for his wedding, 52-year-old relief Captain Raouf Nour El Din, 59-year-old relief First Officer Gameel Al-Batouti, and the airline's chief pilot for the Boeing 767, Captain Hatem Rushdy. Captain El-Habashi was a veteran pilot who had been with EgyptAir for 36 years and had accumulated about 14,400 total flight hours, more than 6,300 of which were on the 767. Relief First Officer Al-Batouti had close to 5,200 flight hours in the 767 and a total of roughly 12,500 hours.
Because of the 10-hour scheduled flight time, the flight required two complete flight crews, each consisting of one captain and one first officer. EgyptAir designated one crew as the "active crew" and the other as the "cruise crew", sometimes also referred to as the "relief crew". While no formal procedure specified when each crew flew the aircraft, the active crew customarily made the takeoff and flew the first four to five hours of the flight. The cruise crew then assumed control of the aircraft until about one to two hours before landing, when the active crew returned to the cockpit and assumed control of the aircraft. EgyptAir designated the captain of the active crew as the pilot-in-command of the flight.
While the cruise crew was intended to take over far into the flight, relief first officer Al-Batouti entered the cockpit and recommended that he relieve command first officer Anwar 20 minutes after takeoff. Anwar initially protested, but eventually relented.
The flight was carrying 203 passengers from seven countries: Canada, Egypt, Germany, Sudan, Syria, the United States, and Zimbabwe. Of the 217 people on board, 100 were American, 89 were Egyptian (75 passengers, 14 crew), 21 were Canadian, and seven were of other nationalities. Many of the American passengers, (of whom many were elderly) were booked with the tour group Grand Circle Travel for a 14-day trip to Egypt. Of the 203 passengers, 32 boarded in Los Angeles; the rest boarded in New York. Four were nonrevenue EgyptAir crew members. Included in the passenger manifest were 33 Egyptian military officers returning from a training exercise; among them were two brigadier generals, a colonel, a major, and four other air force officers. After the crash, newspapers in Cairo were prevented by censors from reporting the officers' presence on the flight.
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