217 Die in Unexplained Plunge of EgyptAir Plane Into Atlantic

An EgyptAir jetliner plunged suddenly and mysteriously, like a stricken bird, into the Atlantic Ocean south of this resort island early Sunday, killing all 217 people aboard and strewing the ink-black sea, 270 feet deep, with their remains.

The plane, a Boeing 767, was Flight 990, which originated in Los Angeles and added fuel and passengers in New York on its way to Cairo. Its abrupt and rapid fall raised immediate questions about sabotage. The FBI and other intelligence agencies began investigations, but President Clinton and other federal officials said there was no immediate evidence of foul play.

Searchers hunted the Atlantic for the fourth time in three years, seeking bodies and pieces of a plane lost at sea. The first time was after TWA Flight 800 went down off Long Island in July 1996, the second after Swissair Flight 111 crashed off Nova Scotia in September 1998, and the third after John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and her sister were killed off Martha’s Vineyard last July.

By nightfall, the searchers aboard 11 aircraft and four cutters had found a body, two partially inflated life rafts and some life jackets and seat cushions. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Richard M. Larrabee said none showed burns, which would have suggested a fire or explosion aboard the plane. The Coast Guard said the sea temperature was 58 degrees, too cold for survival after 12 hours.

The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a team of investigators to the crash site. “I want to assure all Americans and all Egyptians, and indeed everyone around the world, that we will devote all the necessary resources to find out what caused this airliner to crash,” James E. Hall, the NTSB chairman, declared. “We do not know at this point what caused the crash.”

The NTSB said it would work with the FBI, the Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration and the State Department, as well as Egyptian officials. “Until we know exactly what happened, just about everybody will be involved in the investigation,” said an FBI official in Washington. Agents will examine evidence as it is taken from the ocean to a military facility at Quonset Point, R.I., where the NTSB will reassemble the plane.

Other FBI agents in New York, New Jersey and Los Angeles were called in to examine the flight manifest. “We’re trying to determine who was or was not on board,” the FBI official said. A State Department official said passengers on the plane included citizens of Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Chile and the United States.

Some Boarded in Los Angeles

Some of the passengers boarded at Los Angeles International Airport when the plane began its flight Saturday evening. The jetliner flew without incident to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, where, after about an hour, it took off again.

The aircraft climbed normally. At 1:50 a.m. EST Sunday, air traffic controllers observed it on radar at 33,000 feet, Hall said. At that instant, the radar showed, the plane began to fall. Final radar contact came 36 seconds later, Hall said. “At that time, the airplane had descended to 19,100 feet--a very rapid descent, approximately 23,200 feet per minute.”

When it began its terrifying plunge, Hall said, the plane was 60 miles southeast of Nantucket.

Authorities said there was no distress call, which indicated that the aircraft was stricken suddenly--before its crew could radio for help.

The questions of sabotage came amid reports that the FAA had issued an alert a month ago saying that it had received a warning of a possible terrorist threat. An FAA official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the alert was issued on Sept. 24.

The alert, obtained by Associated Press, said the warning came in a letter from someone who signed it as Luciano Porcari. The alert noted that “an individual with this same name” hijacked an Iberian Boeing 727 on March 14, 1977, in Spain before being overpowered and taken into custody, AP said.

The alert was retracted several weeks later, the FAA official said, after the warning was “found not to be credible, because the gentleman involved with that threat currently is in jail. I believe he was in jail at the time the threat was made.”

The official said he could not comment on whether the warning involved a bomb or other explosive device.

Clinton, preparing to depart for Middle East peace talks in Europe, told reporters there was “no evidence . . . at this time” of sabotage. The president, who called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to offer condolences and American assistance, said: “I think it’s better if people draw no conclusions until we know something.”

In Los Angeles, a team of FBI agents questioned ground personnel--mechanics, cargo handlers, ticket takers, food caterers and janitors--who had anything to do with the EgyptAir jet while it was on the ground at LAX.

“Our job is basically preliminary at this point,” said Ray Escudero, an FBI spokesman in Los Angeles. “There is no information at this time to indicate that the crash was the result of a terrorist attack.”

Escudero said those interviewed were asked if they had noticed anything suspicious. He said the interviews would continue until all ground personnel involved had been contacted.

At the Islamic Center of Southern California in Los Angeles, Mahter Hathout, a spokesman, asked why its people had not been notified of the FAA alert. “We are going to raise the issue,” he said, adding that the center would become “a clearinghouse for information.”

Hathout told about 200 people attending a brief service: “We will comfort the families as much as we can. We are not jumping to any conclusions about this. We will let you know of any developments.”

Co-Pilot Remembered as ‘a Gentleman’

Distraught relatives talked briefly about the co-pilot of the plane, whom they identified as Mohammed Gameel el-Bitash, a resident of Cairo. He was among 18 crew members aboard the plane.

“He was a gentleman and a good person, God bless him,” said Mohsen Hamza, a neurologist married to Battuti’s niece. Just five months from retirement, the 59-year-old co-pilot spent time in Los Angeles on layovers. Hamza said el-Bitash had flown for EgyptAir for 20 years. “It’s really sad,” Hamza said. “His wife is in shock.”

In Los Angeles, New York and Cairo, relatives of passengers and crew gathered to mourn the victims. State-owned EgyptAir, confronted with the worst crash in its history, said non-Americans among the 199 passengers included 62 Egyptians, two Sudanese, three Syrians and one Chilean.

A Canadian newspaper, La Presse in Montreal, said its deputy publisher, Claude Masson, and his wife, Jeannine Bourdages, both 58, had been aboard the plane, on vacation.

Of the Americans aboard, 54 were customers of Grand Circle Corp., a travel service in Boston that serves “active Americans over 50” years old.

Group Setting Out on Two-Week Trip

The Grand Circle travelers were beginning a two-week trip to Egypt. A company representative said all members of the group were from the West: California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado. Some had boarded the aircraft in Los Angeles.

The firm said it would bring relatives to the East Coast to mourn their dead.

In a strange twist, Ed McLaughlin, an employee of the Family Enterprise Institute, under contract to EgyptAir to help notify family members of accident victims, boarded the plane after making a speech in Los Angeles. He got off in New York and eight hours later found himself at a news conference about the victims--who had been his fellow passengers.

In New York, investigators used a template set up after the crash of TWA Flight 800 and mobilized an FBI/New York Police Department Joint Terrorist Task Force. Scores of detectives and FBI agents converged on Kennedy airport to question anyone who had any involvement with the EgyptAir flight.

They paid particular attention to passengers’ baggage and cargo, said Lewis D. Schiliro, assistant FBI director in charge of the New York field office.

Officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said all carry-on baggage had gone through JFK’s most sophisticated scanner--which they likened to a medical magnetic resonance imaging machine. Schiliro declined to say whether cargo had gone through X-ray checks.

Grieving relatives gathered at a hotel near JFK, where they were comforted by crisis counselors and clergy. “The families inside are just holding their heads with red eyes,” said Ghazi Khankan, an official of a Long Island mosque who tried to render comfort.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who went to the airport as soon as he heard about the crash, spoke with each of the family members, pledging that New York City would provide all the help it could.

“Unfortunately, this is an area where we have gathered experience in the past,” the mayor told reporters outside the hotel. “I recall TWA and Swissair like it was yesterday.”

Giuliani said at midafternoon that 16 families were in the hotel, with more expected as EgyptAir pledged to transport relatives within the United States and overseas to the scene.

“Some are shellshocked, some are angry,” said Rabbi Moses A. Birnbaum, who viewed the scene in a conference room where the families were gathered.

“There are at least four Muslim clerics. They are sitting with the families. They are trying to involve them in conversation.”

A woman, supported by two men, made her way through a throng of reporters and cameramen. She wailed with grief and collapsed several times before entering the hotel.

“It’s horrible [in] there,” said Mahmoud Hamza, who rushed to the hotel after learning that two friends had been aboard the airliner.

“We have people who are still holding out hope for their loved ones,” said Robert Wingate, a Red Cross spokesman. “Then there are those who know immediately what it means.”

At times the scene at the hotel seemed surreal. As families grieved, costumed children, including a girl dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, prepared for Halloween, and another girl, aged 5, won a “Little Miss Sweetheart” beauty pageant, complete with a blue ribbon.

“Most people are quiet. The pain is written on their faces,” said Rabbi Birnbaum, who said he took a course in grief counseling after the TWA crash. “Unfortunately,” he said, “practice makes perfect.”

Among the mourners at the hotel was the sister-in-law of the pilot of Flight 990, identified by members of the Long Island mosque as Ahmad Al Habashy. “She is in great pain,” said Khankan, the mosque official. “The mayor is inside comforting her.

“It is very emotional. It is very sad,” Khankan said. “The Muslim community all over the world is in mourning.” Families at the hotel were being offered this prayer: “We belong to God, and to God is our return.”

Robert Kelly, director of aviation for the Port Authority, said 185 families had been notified that they had relatives aboard the plane.

Nantucket Residents Watch for Debris

In Nantucket, Bud Glidden, a policeman who serves as director of emergency management, answered his phone at 4 a.m. and felt his stomach drop. Glidden, a veteran of Atlantic crashes, knew that a wide-bodied jet does not go down in the ocean with many survivors.

Glidden, who organized logistic support for helicopters and other aircraft participating in the search, said residents were watching the shoreline for debris. The sky over Nantucket, usually foggy, was blue and clear. “A great day for a search,” Glidden said, sadly, as children from across the island paraded down Main Street in Halloween costumes.

As night approached, Bruce Watts, the Nantucket fire chief, organized 23 lookouts, who hunted along the island shoreline with binoculars, searching for pieces of the plane.

Following the pattern set after the crash of TWA Flight 800, recovery experts were expected to lower sonar into the murky depths of the sea to probe the debris field to try to locate voice and data recorders and the main pieces of the wreckage.

Once a rough map is drawn of where the biggest pieces rest on the bottom, divers will examine them, look for the fuselage and begin the painstaking and emotionally difficult task of bringing bodies to the surface, where they will be studied by medical examiners for clues to the tragedy.

A Navy salvage ship, the Grapple, and Navy divers left Norfolk, Va., Sunday night and were expected to reach the crash scene late today.

The NTSB has well-rehearsed procedures for plane crashes. One of its first tasks will be to organize working parties to study all aspects of the flight, including the integrity of the aircraft structure, its engines, the weather and the performance of its pilots.

It took many months to reassemble 98% of TWA Flight 800 in a giant hangar at Calverton, N.Y., and the recovery at Nantucket could pose a similar challenge because of strong currents, the depth of the sea and the approach of the winter storm season.

NTSB investigators believe TWA 800 plunged into the Atlantic because of an explosion, caused perhaps by faulty wiring in an almost empty fuel tank.

The EgyptAir jet, a model 767-300ER (with ER standing for extended range), came off Boeing Co.’s assembly line immediately before a Lauda Air 767 that crashed eight years ago in a Thailand jungle, Associated Press said.

Both planes were completed just days before Boeing aircraft assemblers went on strike with complaints of fatigue because of overwork.

A Boeing spokesman said it knew of nothing to indicate a connection, but added: “We’re going to look at every possible scenario.”

*

Mehren reported from Nantucket and Goldman from New York. Also contributing to this story were staff writers Elizabeth Shogren and Adrianne Goodman in Washington and Kenneth Reich, George Ramos, David Rosenzweig and Richard E. Meyer, as well as special correspondents Monte Morin and Mireta Gurgenidze, in Los Angeles.

News updates on the crash and recovery of EgyptAir Flight 990 are available on The Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com

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Sonar-Equipped Search

U.S. officials have asked the Navy to send the sonar-equipped search and recovery ship Grapple to help speed efforts to locate wreckage. The Grapple, which found the wreckage of John F. Kennedy Jr.s’ plane, is equipped with sophisticated search gear that will allow it to scan the ocean floor and locate debris.

Locating Debris

Sonar on a 4-foot-long submersible called an ROV helps pinpoint the debris. Images filmed by still and video cameras on board the ROV are transmitted to operators at the surface, who view the scene on video screens.

Lifting Debris

Steel cables from the Grapple are lowered from booms to the wreckage. Divers place nylon straps around the plane pieces, and debris is hauled to the surface.

Fact Sheet

Ship’s length: 255 feet

Width: 51 feet

Weight: 3,193 tons

Salvage depth: to 600 ft.

Cruising speed: 13 knots

Sources: Navy; Peterson Builders Inc.; Department of Defense