FBI Likely to Take Over EgyptAir Crash Probe

A high-ranking government official said Monday that the investigation of EgyptAir 990 likely will be turned over to the FBI, possibly as early as today--an indication that authorities now suspect the ill-fated flight from New York to Cairo was brought down by a criminal act.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said that the plane’s cockpit voice recorder picked up a member of the flight crew uttering “a prayer of some type” as the plane began its dive.

While praying in such a situation wouldn’t seem unusual, the official said, an analysis of the tape suggested “that doesn’t seem to be what it is. The language doesn’t fit what’s going on.”

Substantial portions of the 31-minute tape are in Egyptian-accented Arabic, and the official said investigators are double-checking to make sure their translation and interpretation are accurate.

It also appears that one of the pilots may have left the flight deck briefly and then returned, the official said.

After the dive began, analysis of the plane’s flight data recorder showed, there were some signs that those inside the cockpit may have been pulling in opposite directions for control of the aircraft.

Jim Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters at an afternoon news conference Monday that his agency was “concentrating our efforts on determining from the evidence . . . whether or not this investigation is to remain under the leadership of the NTSB.”

The NTSB is in charge when an air crash is caused by a malfunction, weather, human error or some combination of these. The FBI assumes control when evidence of a criminal act is uncovered.

The Boeing 767 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off Nantucket Island, Mass., on Oct. 31, killing all 217 aboard. The first of the plane’s two “black boxes”--the flight data recorder--was recovered and analyzed last week. Dozens of instrument readings showed it was a routine flight until someone apparently put the plane into a steep dive and inexplicably shut off the engines.

Joe Valiquette, a spokesman for the FBI’s New York office, said all possible explanations for the disaster still are being considered.

“We are all in agreement that the cockpit voice recorder needs further analysis,” he said. “Efforts are being made to enhance the tape.”

An FBI official in Washington said the agency is “looking at the possibility” of taking over the investigation, but the decision depends on conclusions from further analysis of the recorders.

Hall’s comments--in the wake of initial reports that the plane’s cockpit voice recorder contains no clues of a crime--were a pointed hint that investigators still suspect that a deliberate human act may have brought down the jetliner.

While refusing to elaborate, Hall said he is “confident” investigators will find answers to the mystery of Flight 990.

Some speculation has focused on the flight crew, but EgyptAir officials and family members have described the pilot and first officer as dedicated professionals with no psychological problems or political issues.

Seldom does the tape from a cockpit voice recorder take on the importance that it has in the EgyptAir crash. Usually, other evidence, such as radio transmissions, weather conditions or the statements of witnesses on the ground, point to what might have gone wrong.

A Navy undersea robot fished up the cockpit voice recorder Saturday night from a depth of 250 feet. It was flown to Washington on Sunday and a team that included safety investigators, the FBI and Egyptian authorities began listening to about 30 minutes of tape. Since much of the conversation on it is in Arabic, Egyptian and U.S. translators are aiding the crash reconstruction specialists.

Sources said the preliminary “readout” of the recorder did not show any clear sounds of conflict in the cockpit. The pilots encountered a problem and appeared to be working together to solve it, the sources said.

Hall said investigators are now melding information from the data recorder and sounds from the voice recorder into a single timeline. Sounds that might prove of interest to an investigator could include engine noise, audible warnings or even clicks and pops.

“Our investigators are working right now on synchronizing the timing . . . trying to refine the correlation between the two recorders,” Hall said. More translators are being employed to speed up the transcription, he said.

During its dive, Flight 990 dropped from 33,000 feet to about 16,000 feet, approaching the speed of sound. Alarms flashed in the cockpit and passengers experienced a state of weightlessness for about 20 seconds.

The plane bottomed out from the initial plunge and climbed back to 24,000 feet before going into another dive from which it never recovered. Radar data indicated the jetliner probably began to break up about 10,000 feet.

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Times staff writers Eric Lichtblau in Washington and Eric Malnic in Los Angeles contributed to this story.