Co-Pilot Targeted in Crash Probe; Egypt Seeks Input

Bowing to the objections of the Egyptian government, U.S. safety officials on Tuesday delayed turning over the crash investigation of EgyptAir 990 to the FBI, even as the probe itself was focusing on Gamil Batouty, one of the plane’s co-pilots.

Law enforcement officials believe that he was at the controls as the craft began its fateful dive in the early morning hours of Oct. 31. Batouty, who was nearing retirement, was having financial problems due to his daughter’s mounting medical bills, his family told an Egyptian newspaper.

Batouty, one U.S. source said, has been identified as the person heard on the cockpit voice recorder saying a prayer about the time the plane’s autopilot was disconnected and the Boeing 767 began its descent. All 217 people aboard the jet perished.

Neither the National Transportation Safety Board nor the FBI has determined exactly what happened in the cockpit or who was to blame. But NTSB Chairman Jim Hall on Tuesday virtually ruled out any mechanical problems with the airplane.

“Based on evidence we have thus far--the flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder, radar data and the small bits of wreckage that have been recovered--we have so far found no sign of a mechanical or weather-related event that could have caused this accident,” Hall told reporters.

Partly because of the prayer heard on the cockpit voice recorder, the NTSB had planned to turn the investigation over to the FBI, making it a criminal case. But Egyptian authorities apparently objected, saying that such prayers are part of the everyday routine in Egypt and by themselves signal no criminal intent.

“There is a difference in some of the cultural interpretation of the Arabic language spoken on the cockpit voice recorder,” Hall said. “We are trying to determine exactly the meaning of the words that are spoken.”

Hall said that more Egyptian specialists are on their way to Washington to review the evidence, and he set no timetable for deciding if the case would be turned over to the FBI. About 250 FBI agents were assigned to the crash, although the bureau has avoided publicizing its role.

A U.S. government source said there is no indication at this point that the co-pilot belonged to any violent Islamist organization, which would have disqualified him from flying for EgyptAir.

Batouty was well known in the Southern California Muslim community because of his many layovers in Los Angeles. Community members portrayed him as a family man and expressed strong doubts that he would have brought down an aircraft with 216 others on board.

“The theory just sounds weird to begin with. Why would somebody want to die with 300 people?” asked Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles.

A recent report in Egypt’s Al-Ahram newspaper said that Batouty had asked a colleague to carry back gifts and money for his family, even though Batouty was due in Cairo the following day. This was something he had never done before, the report said.

Interviews with Batouty’s family, published in the Egyptian press earlier, indicated that he was in financial difficulty because his daughter reportedly was being treated for lupus.

On Tuesday, EgyptAir spokesman Abdel Azim Sidqi in Cairo reiterated the airline’s “100%” confidence in Flight 990’s pilots, telling The Times that they had “perfect” work records and that there were no indications of physical or psychological problems.

The jet carried two working crews, each with a pilot and co-pilot. One crew at a time would have been in the cabin, while the other pilots flew in the first-class section. Batouty was a member of the “cruise crew,” which would have flown the jetliner over most of its Atlantic crossing, while an “operations crew” mainly handled takeoffs and landings.

Sources close to the investigation said Batouty apparently had asked to be at the controls with the main pilot, Ahmed Habashy, when the jet took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. An EgyptAir spokesman in New York said such a request would not have been considered unusual, since pilots are free to make those arrangements themselves.

The plane’s departure and ascent were uneventful. Flight 990 was cruising on autopilot at 33,000 feet when things started to go wrong. Previously released information shows that someone disconnected the autopilot and, eight seconds later, put the aircraft into a steep dive.

It now appears that the captain had left the cockpit briefly before the dive began and returned to find out what was happening. Investigators believe that the two struggled over the controls.

Also about the time the dive began, the plane’s cockpit voice recorder picked up the words of a prayer: “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.” That statement of faith is part of a pious Muslim’s daily devotions, but it is also said when a believer is facing death. Two sources said analysis of the tape thus far indicates that the words were spoken by Batouty.

As the dive deepened and the aircraft approached the speed of sound, passengers and crew experienced a temporary state of weightlessness. What happened next is unclear.

Evidence from the flight data recorder indicates there may have been a struggle. The elevators--control surfaces on the plane’s tail used to regulate climbing and descent--split, one up and one down. Engineers said this can happen on a Boeing 767 when one person in the cockpit is forcefully pushing his control column forward while another is strongly pulling back on his.

Then, someone shut the engines down.

Radar data showed that Flight 990 continued to fall to about 16,000 feet and then climbed 8,000 feet. It is unknown whether the engines were restarted, but experts say the aircraft was traveling fast enough to generate lift without engine power. The jetliner reached 24,000 feet and then began its final dive.

U.S. investigators’ suspicions that a crew member deliberately destroyed Flight 990 have angered Egyptians, and there is much speculation in Egypt that U.S. officials are trying to cover up a problem with the aircraft.

“The pilots were very conscientious and religious, and none of them would have attempted suicide,” EgyptAir spokesman Sidqi said.

Despite the airline’s assertions, the Egyptian media have reported that Batouty and another co-pilot, Adel Anwar, may have had some kind of foreboding about the flight.

Anwar, 37, was due to be married five days after returning home. The Ahram newspaper reported that he asked his brother in a phone call a few hours before taking off for Cairo to look after his fiancee and their other brothers. His brother Tarek was quoted as saying: “I didn’t know why he said it until I heard about the crash.”

The newspaper also reported that Batouty previously had pondered the possibility of a watery death. “We see our deaths every day over the ocean,” he told his brother-in-law, Essam Dahi.

Although pilot suicide is extremely rare, it has been blamed for at least three commercial aviation crashes in the 1990s.

Pilot suicide is suspected in a 1997 crash that killed 104 people on a SilkAir Boeing 737 flying from Indonesia to Singapore. And in 1994, a Royal Air Maroc pilot, despondent over a failed love affair, killed 44 people when he crashed another ATR into the ground.

U.S. government officials worried that relations with Egypt could be harmed if the Flight 990 investigation is not handled with sensitivity.

“Diplomacy has its place in this,” said a senior official who requested anonymity. “It’s a delicate balance in terms of the timing of the hand-over of the investigation to the FBI.” American authorities want the continued cooperation of their Egyptian counterparts.

That may be one reason why the FBI remains in the background. However, the bureau is conducting an extensive investigation. Passengers, crew, support staff and cargo have been scrutinized.

So far, the FBI has contacted intelligence agencies in other countries about any terrorist threats, but there have been no credible claims of responsibility.

FBI agents also were assigned to Navy vessels to tag and accompany wreckage to shore. To establish a chain of evidence, they traveled to Washington with the voice and data recorders, once those two key pieces of evidence were plucked from the depths of the Atlantic.

Searchers will soon mount a new effort to salvage remaining wreckage in the waters off Massachusett’s Nantucket Island.

Hall said his agency and the FBI are jointly contracting for a large ship that can lift wreckage 250 feet down in the ocean. An effort to locate the plane’s cockpit would be a priority, as is the retrieval of human remains for identification and proper burial.

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Times staff writers John J. Goldman in New York, Robin Wright and Eric Lichtblau in Washington, and Kenneth Reich, Carla Rivera, Soraya Nelson and Scott Gold in Los Angeles contributed to this story. Alonso-Zaldivar reported from Washington and Daniszewski from Cairo.

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Conflicting Signals

Pushing or pulling the control wheel and column in the cockpit--known as the yoke--controls the elevator flaps on the rear wings of the airplane.

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Information from the flight data recorder shows that the first officer’s control wheel was pushed forward, while the captain’s control was pulled back.

The forward yoke lowered the right elevator and caused the plane to go into a dive.

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Cockpit Clues

Analysis of flight data recorders indicates a puzzling sequence of cockpit events, including an apparent struggle over the controls.

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Sources: National Transportation Safety Board; staff reports; researched by JULIE SHEER/Los Angeles Times