At the time of the accident, Ahmed was commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Air Force. More than 30 Air Force officers and technicians were aboard the doomed flight. In 2002 took over the Aviation Ministry where he supervised the last phase of the crash probe conducted by American and Egyptian investigators Did the fact that many Air Force men were among the victims raise suspicion about the crash? If you are a proponent of the theory that the plane was deliberately downed by a missile, my reply is "no". A quick review of the names, rank and professions of the officers and the tasks and type of training they had been receiving in the US would easily allow us to rule out such a theory. But one of the strangest things ever to happen in the history of air transport accidents was that a suicidal pilot theory was leaked just 24 hours after the crash. It was leaked even before the two black boxes were found. Still, the Western media did not rush to discuss the incident for several days until the leak turned into a direct accusation by the investigators just as they had begun analysing the data. Secondly, the American media reported within its early coverage of the accident that one of president Clinton's aides woke him up early in the morning to inform him about an Egyptian commercial plane that had disappeared from the radar screens. Honestly, I do not know if such an act is normal in the White House. Third, I remember that 15 days after the crash, Egyptian investigators raised questions about the functionality of the Boeing 767 elevator system and similar troubleshooting machinery. Then the manufacturers, Boeing, ordered the grounding of 34 aircraft of the same class that proved to have elevator defects. Such a procedure brought panic since production lines were supposed to be suspended for a year. After 48 hours, the manufacturers issued a statement that 'the defects have been fixed and delivery schedule is back to normal.' Fourth is the most controversial part of the story, which adopted a suicidal pilot theory to explain how the plane plunged into the ocean. The theory is based only on a co-pilot repeating one phrase, a religious one. My belief is that the use of this phrase by investigators was not enough and could in fact be in favour of the pilot, not against him. After taking over the Aviation Ministry in 2002, I attended a session concerning Flight 990's CVR. I heard the relief co-pilot, Gamil El-Battouti saying his religious phrase, Tawakaltu Ala Allah (I rely on God). I heard him repeating this phrase 11 times in the same quiet tone. As an ex-Air Force pilot who had spent most of his life flying fighter planes, this is a technical and sensitive point that needs explanation. As a pilot, I know, as do my colleagues, that a sharp descent from 33,000 feet to 16,000 feet in 30 seconds is not easy on the human body. The change in air pressure draws the blood from all body organs and pushes it to the brain. According to the flight data recorder, as the airplane continued to descend rapidly in a 40 degree nose-down position, the co-pilot continued to speak with the same calmness. This is nonsense. As a professional pilot, I cannot imagine how a pilot would be able to control the plane in such a state. Had he not fastened his seatbelt well, his body would have been swimming in air near the cockpit ceiling. The same would apply to the other pilot who came to help, according to the CVR. It is a very difficult position for the human body. It can't control speaking. It cannot, in such quiet tones, repeat one phrase 11 times, nor in such a way that the first one is just as soft as the last one. Let's conduct an experiment to examine such an assumption: a pilot maneuvers a plane of the same class under the same flight conditions of our doomed aircraft and see how it affects his ability to talk and control the plane. I think you suspect the CVR analysing process? I cannot say. Maybe it's not like that. I'd rather think positive and introduce another scenario in which the plane was not diving down in a 40 degree angle when the co-pilot was repeating the critical phrase. The plane was flying in a horizontal position when El-Battouti repeated the phrase 11 times. The flight data recorder was not working properly and we should not depend on it. Finally the suicide scenario contradicts other scenarios introduced by the investigators themselves: that El-Battouti had been a fundamentalist who sought to harm his country and the US. Or that he had been a man who chased women in his New York hotel. Being a pious Muslim is not consistent with committing suicide, unless he was a member of Al-Qaeda of which no proof of such a relationship was found. It is also not consistent with being a womaniser. If the pilot had problems at work, as was claimed, or was anti-American, he should have downed the plane over Egypt or the US so as to generate more publicity. Your final opinion is that the reason behind the crash remains as mysterious as ever? This is my personal point of view. The final report says that for unknown reasons the plane departed from horizontal flying and dove down. Fine, but if they propagate a suicide pilot theory again, I will insist on receiving answers to my questions. I do not buy such an explanation based on inaccurate analysing of silly records.
