Flight 990

: I rely on God. About 17 years ago an Egyptian commercial plane flight 990 crashed in the Atlantic off shore of the east coast. Since it was a long flight it had two flight crews. Both pilots and co-pilots were Egyptian and the co-pilot of the second crew was Gameel Al-Batouti. Egypt investigated the crash and attributed it to mechanical failure. The US felt it was a suicide by Gameel Al-Batouti. The second crew was flying the plane and the Captain went to the lavatory leaving Al-Batouti in the cockpit alone. The voice recorder was found and the last two plus minutes recorded the following. 30 seconds after the Captain left the cockpit leaving Al-Batouti alone the auto pilot was disengaged and Al-Batouti said, in Arabic, I rely on God. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) recorded the captain excusing himself to go to the lavatory, followed thirty seconds later by the first officer saying in Egyptian Arabic "Tawkalt ala Allah," which translates to "I rely on God." A minute later, the autopilot was disengaged, immediately followed by the first officer again saying, "I rely on God." Three seconds later, the throttles for both engines were reduced to idle, and both elevators were moved three degrees nose down. The first officer repeated "I rely on God" seven more times before the captain suddenly asked repeatedly, "What's happening, what's happening?" The flight data recorder reflected that the elevators then moved into a split condition, with the left elevator up and the right elevator down, a condition which is expected to result when the two control columns are subjected to at least 50 pounds (23 kgf) of opposing force.[1] At this point, both engines were shut down by moving the start levers from run to cutoff. The captain asked, "What is this? What is this? Did you shut the engines?" The captain is then recorded as saying "get away in the engines" (this is the literal translation that appears in the NTSB transcript), followed by "shut the engines". The first officer replies "It's shut". The final recorded words are the captain repeatedly stating, "Pull with me" but the FDR data indicated that the elevator surfaces remained in a split condition (with the left surface commanding nose up and the right surface commanding nose down) until the FDR and CVR stopped recording. There were no other aircraft in the area. There was no indication that an explosion occurred on board. The engines operated normally for the entire flight until they were shut down. From the presence of a western debris field about 1,200 feet (370 m) from the eastern debris field, the NTSB concluded that the left engine and some small pieces of wreckage separated from the aircraft before water impact. Egypt maintains to this day that it was a mechanical failure. It takes so long for the investigation to be complete that people lose interest and this was the case with this flight. This will likely be the case with the more recent crash of an Egyptian plane.