Egypt Privately Agrees Suicide Caused 1999 Air Crash
WASHINGTON, June 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Egyptian investigators privately agreed with an earlier U.S. report blaming the October 1999 crash of an EgyptAir plane in which 217 people died on suicide, according to an American magazine.
EgyptAir's managing director Mohamed Fahim Rayyan has rejected the theory of a suicide by the plane's co-pilot, Gamil al-Battuti.
The National Transportation Safety Board is to release its final report on the crash, which concludes that Battuti caused the Boeing to dive into the Atlantic shortly after take-off from New York on October 13, 1999, killing all on board, Newsweek said Sunday.
Reporting that U.S. intelligence secretly monitored communications between Cairo and an Egyptian investigation team in Washington, the magazine said "intercepts reveal that despite their public stance, the Egyptian investigators privately agreed with their U.S. counterparts that suicide was the likely cause" of the crash.
Newsweek also cited U.S. officials as saying Egyptian authorities blocked efforts by U.S. investigators to look into Battuti's lifestyle.
Egyptian authorities have demanded the report be based on facts alone, and according to Newsweek insist the crash was caused by a mechanical problem.
All on board were killed when the Boeing 767 crashed into the sea off Massachusetts. No mechanical cause for the crash has been found.
Earlier this month, the man who headed the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board at the time of the crash, James Hall, said it could only have been caused by someone in the cockpit.
"The information that I have very carefully reviewed when I was chairman left no question in my mind ... that there is no way that the events could have occurred as a result of a mechanical failure, but occurred as a result of pilot actions,'' Hall said.
Investigators have focused on co-pilot Gamil Battuti, who was at the controls when the aircraft went into a final dive.
