From the cockpit voice recorder it was learned that relief first officer (relief copilot) Gamil al-Batouti (surname also spelled El Batouty) took over the copilot seat only 22 minutes after takeoff, at his own insistence.


EgyptAir Flight 990 (MS990/MSR990) was a regularly scheduled flight from Los Angeles International Airport, United States, to Cairo International Airport, Egypt..

By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica.Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. The Egyptians found that sheared rivets in the elevator control mechanism caused the problem, and that everyone in the cockpit was working together to regain control up to the time the plane hit the water.aviation disaster, off the coast of Massachusetts, United States [1999] The engines were shut off about 15 seconds before the electrical system failed and flight data recording ceased. After takeoff, Flight 990 was handled by three different controllers as it climbed up in stages to its assigned cruising altitude.The records of the radar returns then indicate a sharp descent, with the plane dropping 14,600 feet (4,500 m) in 36 seconds before its last altitude report at 06:50:29 The aircraft crashed in international waters, so the Egyptian government had the right to initiate its own Search and rescue operations were launched within minutes of the loss of radar contact, with the bulk of the operation being conducted by the A second salvage effort was made in March 2000 that recovered the aircraft's second engine and some of the cockpit controls.Two weeks after the crash, the NTSB proposed declaring the crash a criminal event and handing the investigation over to the FBI.

Durch das unvermittelte Abstürzen des Flugzeugs aus Reiseflughöhe ohne vorheriges Absetzen eines N… What’s happening?” Al-Batouti was heard stating repeatedly (in Arabic) “I rely on God.” As the rate of descent decreased, the left and right elevators—the hinged panels in an airplane’s tail that control ascent and descent—became set in opposite directions: for ascent on the left (captain’s) side, and for descent on the right (copilot’s) side. MSR990). The accident airplane's nose-down movements did not result from a failure in the elevator control system or any other airplane failure. The NTSB attributed the crash to the actions of al-Batouti.In Egypt, where EgyptAir was the flag carrier (national airline), the NTSB findings were unpopular. The state-owned Unifying all the Egyptian press was a stridently held belief that "it is inconceivable that a pilot would kill himself by crashing a jet with 217 people aboard.
What was unprofessional was the insistence by the Egyptians, in the face of irrefutable evidence, to anyone who knows anything about investigating airplane accidents and who knows anything about aerodynamics and airplanes, was the fact that this airplane was intentionally flown into the ocean.

No scenario that the Egyptians came up with, or that we came up with, in which there were some sort of mechanical failure in the elevator control system, would either match the flight profile or was a situation in which the airplane was not recoverable.This dramatization also depicts the relief first officer forcing the plane down while the command captain attempts to pull the plane up.

EgyptAir Flight 990 (MS990/MSR990) was a regularly scheduled flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Cairo International Airport, with a stop at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City.

37.000 Fuß (Flugfläche 370) gesendet.





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. The Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority carried out its own investigation and issued a report that rejected the possibility that al-Batouti had caused the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the EgyptAir flight 990 accident is 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.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) stated that the actions of the copilot caused the crash, but Egyptian authorities blamed mechanical failure. The dive was so rapid as to simulate zero gravity within the aircraft.



There were those who opined that it was an action (and potentially a conspiracy) of Muslim extremists against Egypt.

The accident airplane's movements after the command captain returned to the cockpit were the result of both pilots' inputs, including opposing elevator inputs where the relief first officer continued to command nose-down and the captain commanded nose-up elevator movements.

While relief first officer Al-Batouti was alone in the cockpit and captain El-Habashi was in the lavatory, the aircraft suddenly went into a rapid dive nose-first, resulting in Interaction between ZNY and Flight 990 was completely routine. Nach Informationen der "New York Times" richtet sich der Verdacht vor allem gegen den Ersatz-Kopiloten Gamil el-Batuti, der kurz vor dem Absturz allein am Steuer gesessen haben soll.