Original subtitles

NARRATOR: A Boeing 767 cruises high above the Atlantic Ocean

on its way to Egypt.

217 people are on board.

Just half an hour after takeoff, disaster strikes.

I rely on God.

NARRATOR: The pilot and co-pilot struggle desperately

for control of their aircraft.

The lives of all on board will depend on these two pilots

and what they do during this dive toward the ocean.

I rely on God.

WOMAN: Ladies and gentleman--

MAN: We lost both engines.

WOMAN: Brace for impact!

NARRATOR: It's just after 1:00 AM on October 31, 1999.

The 217 people on board EqyptAir flight 990

are waiting for takeoff.

The flight's command pilot is Captain Ahmed El-Habashi.

He has been with EqyptAir for 36 years.

The command first officer is 36-year-old Adel Anwar.

He switched duty with another co-pilot

so he could return home in time for his wedding.

Soon be a married man.

Congratulations, Adel.

Thank you very much.

NARRATOR: The airline's chief pilot

for the Boeing 767, Captain Hatem Rushdy,

joins them in the cockpit.

At 1:20 in the morning, first officer, Adel Anwar,

is going through his takeoff clearance

with air traffic control.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: (ON RADIO) 6,000.

You fly the gateway climb.

Climbing to 5,000.

Following gateway.

Cleared for takeoff runway 22 right.

EqyptAir 990 heavy.

Cabin crew advised?

In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate,

cabin crew take off position.

NARRATOR: After an everyday blessing,

the co-pilot assists the takeoff.

For safety, both pilots push the throttles.

On a flight of 10 hours, it is standard practice

at EqyptAir to provide a relief crew

to share the flying duties.

The command crew takes off and lands.

The relief crew flies the middle portion.

Tonight, Captain Raouf Noureldin

and first officer Gameel Al-Batouti

are the relief crew.

They will take over after the first three or four hours

and fly the plane until shortly before Cairo.

V1 rotate.

Positive rate of climb both sides.

1,000.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: (ON RADIO) EqyptAir 990, heavy, contact.

Departure now 125.7.

125.7.

Bye.

NARRATOR: A large number of passengers

are senior citizens from the United States,

looking forward to touring the wonders of ancient Egypt.

My dad and Ginnie were married in 1998 on October 23.

And to celebrate their first anniversary,

they decided to take a trip to Egypt.

NARRATOR: Maureen Sacratini and her brother, John Simmermeyer

enjoyed the fact that their parents loved to travel.

JOHN SIMMERMEYER: They had been particularly fond of a program

known as Elder Hostel.

And this particular vacation trip

to visit the pyramids and the other historical sites

in Egypt was an Elder Hostel trip.

NARRATOR: There are 14 of EgyptAir's experienced crew

operating the flight.

There are also 33 Egyptian military officers and pilots

on board, returning after training

with the American armed forces.

Gameel Al-Batouti used to be an Egyptian Air

Force flight instructor.

He is now one of the oldest first officers at EgyptAir.

He is so much older than the other co-pilots,

that out of respect, they call him Captain.

But some at EgyptAir think that Captain

Al-Batouti has been coasting too long

in the favors of old friends.

Just over 20 minutes after takeoff,

Al-Batouti is about to leave his seat.

Former National Transportation Safety Board investigator,

Greg Phillips became an expert on the events of this flight.

The relief first officer who would have been expected

to come to the cockpit somewhere

during the later part of the flight, halfway

or wherever he was comfortable or wherever the normal change

would have been came into the cockpit

about 20 minutes after takeoff.

Hello, Gameel.

How are you?

How are you, sir?

What's new?

I-- I slept, I swear.

Just wait.

Let me tell you something.

I'm not going to sleep at all.

I might come sit for two hours and then

I-- I slept.

I slept.

You mean you are not going to get up?

You will get up.

Go and take some rest and come back.

You should have told me this.

You should have told me this, Captain Gameel.

You should have said, Adel--

Did I even see you?

--I will work first.

Just leave me a message.

NARRATOR: The younger first officer

seems surprised that Al-Batouti wants to replace

him so early in the flight.

And I'm not sleepy.

So you take your time sleeping.

And when you wake up, whenever you wake up,

you come back, Captain, OK?

I'll come either way.

Captain--

Come and work the last few hours and that's all?

It's not like that.

That's not the point.

Look, if you want to sit here, there's no problem.

I'll go get something to eat and come back, all right?

Fine, fine, look here, why don't

they bring your dinner to you here

and then I'll go sleep, OK?

That's good.

OK, with your permission, Captain.

NARRATOR: And with that, Al-Batouti

leaves to get his meal.

Do you see how he does whatever he pleases?

Do you know why that is?

NARRATOR: Captain El-Habashi senses

his first officer's resentment and tries

to smooth over the situation.

Are you a youngster?

NARRATOR: Anwar wonders if Al-Batouti wants to take over

because he may not want to work with relief

Captain Raouf Noureldin.

Doesn't he want to work with Raouf or what?

It's possible. It's possible.

God knows.

But look, you shouldn't get upset, right?

By this prophet, he's just talking nonsense.

That's it.

Everything's under control.

OK, chief.

Thanks again.

NARRATOR: First officer Anwar concedes and is ready to hand

over to Al-Batouti.

Normally, this is the most relaxed, easy

part of a long flight for pilots and passengers alike.

The highly automated aircraft systems

will take care of the flying for several hours.

MAN: (ON RADIO) EqyptAir 990 roger.

GREG PHILLIPS: It's very unusual for an airplane flying

over the Atlantic at nighttime to encounter

any kind of difficulties.

We normally expect accidents to happen in approach

or landing or near airports.

And very seldom do we get anything out over the ocean

in the middle of the night.

Excuse me, Gameel, while I take

a quick trip to the toilet.

Go ahead, please.

Before it gets crowded, while they're still eating.

I'll be back to you.

NARRATOR: EgyptAir's flight 990 appears to be cruising

smoothly over the Atlantic.

Speak of the devil, hey?

NARRATOR: But then, the plane dips, plunging down.

The nose pitches down, creating 0 g and weightlessness

throughout the aircraft.

This airplane basically started

at 1 g, which is what we expect for level cruise flight.

As you push the nose down as if you would be cresting

the top of a hill in a car at a high speed that drops away,

you'd feel the airplane fall away from you

and you would start to feel a little light in the seat.

And as the dive progressed, you would

feel a little bit lighter yet.

I rely on God.

NARRATOR: Whatever the first officer is intending,

he says nothing except this phrase, again and again.

Adel--

NARRATOR: Captain El-Habashi fights

the disorientation of 0 gravity,

desperately trying to return to the cockpit.

An American journalist living in France

studied this flight extensively.

16 seconds after the dive began when the airplane had

gone into 0 g and into negative g and was at an extreme angle,

the captain somehow made his way back into the cockpit.

How he did that physically, I will never know.

NARRATOR: Warning signals indicate the dive is exceeding

the maximum speed allowed for the plane,

taking them to 99% of the speed of sound.

This far past the plane's design limits.

The stresses on the airframe are pulling it apart.

What's happening?

I rely on God.

I rely on God.

NARRATOR: Captain El-Habashi pulls back

hard on his control column.

Then he tries to use the engines to power their way out

of the dive by pushing forward on the throttles,

but he gets nothing.

What?

You shut off the engines?

I rely on God.

NARRATOR: Desperate, the captain deploys the speed

brakes, panels standing up from the wings in an effort

to slow the dive.

The dive is slowing back from the brink

of the sound barrier.

The dive goes on but the nose is coming up.

In just seconds, they go from 0 g

to double the force of gravity.

Captain El-Habashi struggles to level the plane

and pulls back hard on the control column.

The 767 dive begins to slow.

Pull with me.

I rely on God.

You shut off the engine.

Pull.

NARRATOR: In seconds, the engines stop and the power

goes off, plunging the aircraft into darkness.

Here, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data

recorder stop.

No one knows what happened in the plane

during the next two minutes, but radar tracks its path.

The plane is climbing again.

Up from about 16,000 feet to over 24,000 feet

as the aircraft structure is weakened

by the strains of abnormal speeds and maneuvers.

Pull!

NARRATOR: Then the aircraft falls

into another terrifying dive.

Stressed beyond endurance, the left engine

is ripped from the plane.

WOMAN: (ON RADIO) EqyptAir 990 New York Center.

EqyptAir 990, if you copy, New York--

NARRATOR: At 1:50 AM, flight 990

disappears from radar screens, crashing

into the surface of the Atlantic Ocean over 60 miles

off the American coast.

Coast Guard search and rescue get a call at 2:15 AM.

A plane has disappeared and Coast Guard vessels

are called to the scene.

In Heliopolis, a Cairo suburb, Captain El-Habashi's daughter

can only guess what her father went through.

Can you imagine, if you have a beloved one, a father,

a daughter or a brother, facing all the horrors of finding

himself falling from 36,000 feet

suddenly, trying to save his life,

his colleagues' lives, the people, the passengers.

We located a significant debris field

and that we have concentrated our search efforts since then

on about a 36 square mile of area about 50 miles South

of Nantucket.

NARRATOR: At the end of October,

the waters of the North Atlantic

are so cold that normally, life expectancy

is about 5 to 6 hours.

In Cairo, relief captain Raouf Noureldin's daughter, Mai,

clung to hope for her father.

I was talking to myself, trying

to convince myself that my father was not on this plane.

And if he's on this plane, he will be safe because my father

was an Air Force pilot.

He had a very good experience.

And I thought maybe if the plane crashed, he will be able

to-- you know, to be in a safe place

and to swim and to go to any land.

NARRATOR: At the crash site, only pieces are left.

Within hours, authorities know there

is little hope for survivors.

COAST GUARD SPOKESPERSON: We believe at this point

that it is in everyone's best interest

to no longer expect that we will

find survivors in this case.

NARRATOR: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak reaches

out to his stricken nation.

This is the worst air crash in Egypt's history.

I really was shocked.

It's a big tragedy for us.

And I give my condolences to all the passengers,

to the families, the families of the crews

who have been lost in this tragedy,

and I have contact with President Clinton

and other others overseas.

And he's giving good support for trying

to find, investigate, see what was the reason.

NARRATOR: The American president would answer

his ally with a commitment.

And I spoke earlier with President Mubarak of Egypt

today to express my condolences and to assure him

that we would be working together closely

until this matter is resolved.

We do not know what caused this tragedy.

NARRATOR: In northern Indiana, music historian

Jim Brokaw learned what happened

to his father and stepmother.

One of the many things that I felt

on that first horrible morning was the sense that people all

over the world were confronting the same horrible

circumstances that I was and had

the same sense of helplessness and disorientation that I did.

NARRATOR: Grieving relatives arrive

at Newport, Rhode Island.

They will seek answers and share comfort.

There were 100 Americans, 89 Egyptians,

21 Canadians, and 7 victims of other nationalities on board.

They all ask, what caused this tragedy?

Teams of investigators will pursue that question for years

to come.

We are beginning what may be a long investigation

and we are prepared to do what it

takes to find the answers to the questions we are seeking.

NARRATOR: In Washington, Greg Phillips from the National

Transportation Safety Board leads the investigation

into this crash.

From the very beginning, we realized

it was a very difficult case.

The airplane was in cruise, nighttime, out over the ocean

and went into the ocean.

There was just a little bit of floating debris,

but we had to recover the airplane

from the bottom of the ocean to begin the investigation.

NARRATOR: The job of finding the black boxes would be

difficult. The water is over 200 feet deep

and the force of the crash has smashed the locator

beacons off the boxes.

Nine days after the crash, the US Navy's unmanned submarine

deep drone recovers the first of the two black boxes,

the flight data recorder which stores

information about what the aircraft and its systems

were doing.

Four days later, the second black box, the cockpit voice

recorder lands in the deck and is carefully transported

to the NTSB laboratories.

The cockpit voice recorder captures

all sounds in the cockpit for the last 30 minutes

of the flight.

The recovery of the cockpit voice recorder

provided a gripping and bewildering picture

of the last minutes of a disaster.

Investigators hope that this is the key to unlocking

the mystery of flight 990.

Translating the Arabic spoken in the cockpit

is a top priority NTSB headquarters.

The cockpit voice recorder was a good quality.

It was easily usable and translatable

by the investigation team.

The cockpit voice recorder is always just a piece

of the investigation that fits many other pieces

of the puzzle.

NARRATOR: On major investigations

like the crash of EqyptAir 990, the NTSB

works routinely with the FBI.

The physical evidence has to be managed in case

it's needed in court.

Former FBI Assistant Director Lew

Schiliro is a veteran investigator and no stranger

to air crashes.

By the time EqyptAir occurred,

we were fairly adept at looking at airline disasters,

particularly with the view of developing

whether or not a terrorist incident or criminal act

had occurred.

NARRATOR: The FBI checked for evidence

of bombs, terrorists, or terrorist targets

on the flight.

LEW SCHILIRO: Trying to determine luggage

against the passenger list and whether or not there

was anything unusual in the manifest,

whether or not the people that loaded the plane

could recall anything that would

have caused them concern.

We reviewed surveillance tapes to indicate

whether or not anything unusual was loaded on that plane.

We had no evidence at all of any explosive device

on board EgyptAir that night.

NARRATOR: At the NTSB, American investigators

found no failure in the aircraft

from studying the flight data recorder.

But Egypt's members of the investigation team

insisted that not all the evidence was in.

Much of the wreckage was still in storage in Rhode Island.

They hope the cause of the crash can be found here.

Egypt's representatives search for any possible mechanical

cause for the crash.

While they search, other theories are pursued.

A study into the causes of airline crashes

published in January 2001 points to pilot error

as the cause for 1/3 of these accidents.

It also finds a strong connection between bad weather

and pilot error.

But the crash of EqyptAir 990 occurred in clear weather

with veteran pilots.

What happened in the cockpit would divide the investigation

and fuel an international controversy.

The investigation into the crash of Flight 990

develops in two directions, mechanical failure

and pilot action.

Rumors swirl about what or who may have caused the crash.

One of the key questions, why was

the relief first officer in the cockpit hours

earlier than expected?

He was supposed to replace Adel Anwar

much later in the flight.

Tell you something--

NARRATOR: But in Cairo, Adel Anwar's older brother,

Tarek, has no problem with Adel being replaced in the cockpit.

INTERPRETER: Suppose I am was one of my friends

and we are traveling in a car and he asks me

if he can drive instead of me.

Is this going to be a problem?

For example, if Adel didn't get enough sleep

and Captain Gameel told him, let

me fly the plane instead of you and you go rest,

there is no problem with that.

NARRATOR: When the actions in the cockpit

are put together with a voice recordings,

a timeline emerges that indicates

a series of initially bewildering decisions.

I'll be back to you.

NARRATOR: The timeline reveals that after Captain El-Habashi

leaves the cockpit, there's a series of sounds whose meaning

can only be guessed at.

Control it.

NARRATOR: And then the relief first officer

disconnects the autopilot.

I rely on God.

NARRATOR: Released from the autopilot's control,

the plane starts to descend, rolling to the left.

Egypt's experts described Al-Batouti's decision

to shut off the autopilot as a possible reaction

to an unusual movement of the aircraft,

prompting him to take manual control.

However, the leader of the NTSB investigation disagrees.

We found no reason for the autopilot

to be disconnected by a fault or failure in the airplane.

NARRATOR: After switching off the autopilot,

Al-Batouti pushes his control column forward,

lowering the elevator panels so the flight data recorder

indicates to the NTSB.

Then he pulls the throttles back, reducing engine power.

This causes the plane to dive.

Egypt's investigators say Al-Batouti was not

trying to crash the plane and there

may have been an elevator failure

which he could not overcome.

Strangely, there is no discussion of a problem

on the cockpit tape.

I rely on God.

NARRATOR: When the captain made his way back to the cockpit,

he asked the first officer what was going on

and never received a response.

As former director of aviation safety,

Bernard Loeb oversaw all air crash

investigations at the NTSB.

It is well understood that in a cockpit, a jet transport

cockpit or virtually any airline in the world, when

a captain comes in and asks a question,

the first officer will respond.

When the captain asked his questions,

Batouti did not respond.

NARRATOR: Fighting the dive, pulling his column back all

the way, the captain cannot gain complete

control of the elevator.

So he tries the throttles to power out of the dive.

You shut off the engines?

NARRATOR: He was unaware that seconds

earlier, the first officer had shut

off the fuel to the engines.

Egypt's experts say that Al-Batouti may have

been acting out of caution.

The flight data show that a low oil pressure warning appeared.

That can mean the engines have flamed out.

The captain may have then ordered the fuel

to the engines shut off as part of the procedure

for restarting the engines.

CAPTAIN EL-HABASHI: Shut the engines.

It's shut.

I rely on God.

NARRATOR: The NTSB considers this possible scenario

as well.

The engines shut off, a two-engine airplane

at night over the water.

We couldn't understand any reason why any emergency could

cause you to shut all of the power of available

to the airplane when you're heading

away from the nearest airport.

NARRATOR: Foremost among the Egyptian investigator

scenarios was a tragic elevator failure.

You have real problems in the elevators.

NARRATOR: In Washington, at the National Transportation Safety

Board, analysis of the flight data recorder

indicates that Captain El-Habashi was pulling back

on his column to make the plane climb,

while flight officer Al-Batouti appears

to be pushing forward on his column,

making the plane go down.

Elevators work simply.

Pull back on the column, and the elevators

go up, lifting the plane.

Push forward, and the elevator panels move down

to make the plane descend.

They work together.

But in this case, they are going in opposite directions.

What happened to the elevator shaft?

NARRATOR: Egypt's experts argue that this crash could have

been caused by a failure in the elevator assembly,

producing an elevator hard over, a jam in the elevator

controls, which locked them in the down position,

plunging the aircraft into an uncontrollable dive.

I rely on God.

NARRATOR: They stated that first officer Al-Batouti was

working to regain control of the elevators

and added that he and Captain El-Habashi

were working together.

If there had been an elevator failure,

it could explain the first officer's unusual performance

in the cockpit.

CAPTAIN EL-HABASHI: Pull!

NARRATOR: Supporting evidence is

found when analyzing fragments of the wreckage

in the hangar at Rhode Island.

Here, investigators made a remarkable discovery, three

unusually sheared rivets.

These tiny parts play an important role in the Boeing

767 elevator assembly.

Egypt's consulting experts determined that the scratches

in the metal surfaces of these rivets

show that they were sheared off in two different directions.

One direction could be attributed to the crash.

The second could indicate that the break occurred

before the crash, and so may have indicated

a jam in the elevators.

Egypt's experts brought this to the attention

of the Federal Aviation Administration, America's

civil aviation regulator.

Alarmed by the potential risks, the FAA

ordered all bell crank rivets to be

inspected on every Boeing 767 in use around the world.

The inspections uncovered 136 sheared rivets and 34 aircraft

were grounded until the fault was fixed.

The FAA said the problem could result

in loss of controllability of the airplane.

Egypt's investigators had uncovered a credible scenario,

that sheared rivets in the elevator assembly

of the Boeing 767 indicated a jam that could have

caused an elevator hard over that the pilots could

not overcome.

NTSB investigator Greg Phillips disagreed.

Those are by design for the Boeing 767.

The controls can be split.

They're designed that way in case one of the surfaces,

the control surfaces fails so that whoever is still

in control of the airplane or can control the airplane

with a failed elevator.

NARRATOR: Before he became an investigative writer,

William Langewiesche was a commercial airline pilot.

Flight 990's maneuvers are programmed into a flight

simulator in order for Langewiesche

to test the pilot's reactions.

WILLIAM LANGEWIESCHE: To see an airplane going so wildly

into a dive, to see the altimeters unwinding

at that speed, to hear the horns

and warning signals going off--

--is frightening.

NARRATOR: Whatever the cause of the dive,

Langewiesche tries a variety of responses to recover from it.

WILLIAM LANGEWIESCHE: To sit in a 767 or any airplane

going out of control and do nothing for 15 seconds,

15 seconds is a long time.

It's inconceivable.

But I did it.

And even in 15 seconds, even waiting 15 seconds,

I was able, really reacting as almost as any student pilot

would, to recover from the dive before the airplane

exceeded its limits.

NARRATOR: No Boeing 767 has suffered

from an elevator hard over and dive

before or since the crash.

The aviation experts hired by Egypt

developed a wide range of scenarios,

setting a fault in the elevator assembly

as a possible cause of the crash.

GREG PHILLIPS: Based on the data, the information we have

from the testing that was done is a group effort

with all the best thinking everybody had at the time,

we could not make this airplane do what

it did with any of the failure scenarios

that were presented to us.

NARRATOR: When mechanical failure scenarios were

exhausted and terrorism was excluded,

the FBI continued to dig into the life of first officer

Gameel Al-Batouti.

Less than three weeks after the disaster, news media

report that in the final moments before the crash,

Al-Batouti said, I have made my decision.

I put my faith in God, causing many to believe

he might be an Islamic militant bent on destruction.

But the translation was incorrect.

From our initial review of Al-Batouti's background,

he was a fairly religious person,

but I don't think we had anything to determine that his

religious beliefs were radical or beyond what would have been

a normal religious person.

Tawakilt ala Allah.

NARRATOR: What had Al-Batouti said and what does it mean?

Tawakilt ala Allah.

NARRATOR: Egyptian professor, Amin

Bonnah teaches Arabic at Georgetown

University in Washington.

Tawakkaltu means I depend, I rely, I trust.

And ala, on.

And Allah is God.

Ala Tawakkaltu Allah, on God, I rely.

People use it when they start a trip, when they start driving,

going back home.

We sat Tawakkaltu ala Allah.

It's a very positive phrase.

So it's not the kind of phrase that anyone would

be using before they commit a crime

or before they commit suicide.

Tawakilt ala Allah.

NARRATOR: To say this common phrase once was normal,

but Al-Batouti repeated it 11 times.

Tawakilt ala Allah.

CAPTAIN EL-HABASHI: What's happening?

Tawakilt ala Allah.

I expect that Captain Al-Batouti would say there is

a fire in the engines, something stopped,

or I can see something is hitting the plane,

anything like that.

But he go on and is endlessly saying, Tawakkaltu ala Allah.

This is not logic.

NARRATOR: For the Al-Batouti family,

their grief would be compounded by the need

to defend their father's honor.

INTERPRETER: When he died, the one

thing we had to reassure us was that he had died honorably.

And now they're trying to take that away from us.

NARRATOR: Chairman Jim Hall allowed

that it could have been a criminal act

rather than an accident.

The investigation could end up in the hands of the FBI alone.

It is only prudent for the National Transportation Safety

Board to consult with these experts and officials

to fully evaluate this information prior

to any final decision on whether the responsibility

for this investigation should transfer to the Federal

Bureau of Investigation.

NARRATOR: Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak,

formerly commander of the Egyptian Air Force

had known Gameel Al-Batouti, according

to his nephew Waleeb.

Mubarak asked President Bill Clinton

to intercede to keep the crash from becoming an FBI matter.

Since the crash, Walid Al-Batouti, nephew of Gameel,

has become the Al-Batouti family spokesman.

WALID AL-BATOUTI: You have to understand that the highest

rank in this country, which is the Egyptian President,

was an Air Force pilot.

And he was asked, and he says, according to my experience,

it's in the tail unit.

Something happened there.

It's not suicide.

It could be either a mechanical failure, a manufacturing

failure, something.

NARRATOR: In America, the FBI focuses on Gameel Al-Batouti

and the question of motive.

LEW SCHILIRO: He was 59 years old, approaching 60,

had never risen above the rank of first officer.

That may have caused him some animosity towards EgyptAir.

Had some personal issues in his own life

in terms of financial--

some issues in terms of his family members being sick,

needing medical attention.

They've used the daughter in the accusation

as they said she was sick and that's why

maybe he committed suicide.

Before we go to this, I will give you the reason.

First, the doctors have already--

on that particular flight, have already told him

that your daughter is going positive with the medication

and everything is going fine.

And he was extremely happy.

He was so excited to come back.

NARRATOR: Gameel Al-Batouti was bringing his daughter's

medical records back with him that night,

among other things.

OK, he bought tires for his son.

And an argument went on the phone between him and his son.

INTERPRETER: My father called me to come to the airport

because he could not carry all four tires himself.

He says, listen, I carry your tires

all the way from the states.

You don't want to come and carry it from the airport?

It's a very natural thing.

A man is going to commit suicide, why would he do this?

NARRATOR: In New York, the FBI continue their investigation

at the Hotel Pennsylvania where EqyptAir had a block booking

of rooms for their crews.

LEW SCHILIRO: The investigation that the FBI was

able to do as far as Batouti's background probably spanned

a period of about a year or so, at least from the records

that we were able to obtain and from the interviews

we did at the various places that he stayed.

So he did have, I think, a propensity

to engage in behavior with some of the hotel people in terms

of sexual misconduct--

Hey, pretty lady, where did you get to?

--which, you know, at the time, really

appeared to be totally out of the realm

of what was normal for a person of that status to do.

NARRATOR: A husband and father of five,

Gameel Al-Batouti was notorious for harassing

female guests and hotel staff.

I'm in the hotel too.

You come to my room.

NARRATOR: The FBI learned that two years before the crash,

two young women reported that he called them on their hotel

room phone, telling them to look out the window

across the courtyard.

You have a good time too.

NARRATOR: When they did, they saw Al-Batouti

exposing himself, and reported the incident

to hotel security.

His provocative behavior continued.

A hotel maid told the FBI that the night

before the crash of EqyptAir 990, Al-Batouti

had sexually harassed her again.

Let me tell you something.

No, I want to talk to you because, look,

I'll give you $100 if you just come to my room.

- I'm not here for that. - Oh, sure.

I'm here to work.

Just leave me alone!

Don't be like that.

NARRATOR: When the maid reported the approach,

another addition was made to the hotel

record of sexual harassment of guests and staff

by Al-Batouti.

The allegation of the hotel, as far as they said,

it happened way before, not one day

before the flight, not one day before the flight

as has been mentioned.

NARRATOR: The hotel maid told the FBI

the incident took place on October 29, 1999,

the day before the flight.

Three months after the FBI began

investigating Al-Batouti, an EgyptAir flight

landed in London.

The plane's captain requested political asylum

in the United Kingdom.

He claimed to have information about the cause

of the crash of EqyptAir 990 and he

feared reprisals in Egypt.

Captain Hamdi Taha was a colleague of Gameel

Al-Batouti's, and he was walking away from his wife,

his family, and his country.

The FBI sent a special agent.

And along with a British security officer,

he interviewed Captain Taha.

Were you aware of Al-Batouti displaying sexually

inappropriate behavior?

Yes.

This is very important.

I heard it from pilots who I trust.

Batouti got into trouble for sexual misbehavior

in New York with maids and following women and so on.

The airline tolerated this for a while.

And they told him several times,

maybe you can get away with this, normally.

But this is America.

You represent our country.

You cannot do these things.

NARRATOR: Captain Taha's information was second hand,

but his description of Al-Batouti meeting

with the airline's chief pilot was intriguing.

Hatem Rushdy went to see Batouti the night

they took Flight 990.

They had a meeting in the hotel.

He told him that what he had done could not be covered up

and something had to be done.

The flight back to Cairo from New York

would be his last flight.

Gameel, we go back many years together,

but this will be your last flight to the United States.

He would not be flying to America any more.

So I think that what happened was this.

He must have said to himself, if this is going

to be my last flight, it will be hot Hatem

Rushdy's last flight also.

LEW SCHILIRO: Certainly within various corporations

where people bring weapons into the office

and attempt to take revenge against people that they feel

have aggrieved them, perhaps because he

felt that EqyptAir had been the cause of some of his issues.

And unfortunately, in this case,

it was the kind of office that was flying at 33,000 feet.

NARRATOR: The FBI provides Taha's interviews to the NTSB.

Egyptian officials ask for another EgyptAir pilot

to be interviewed.

Mohamed Badrawi had known Al-Batouti for 40 years.

Interviewed at the NTSB, he described

discussing with Captain Rushdy what to do

about Al-Batouti's behavior.

Do you know if Hatem Rushdy was aware of this,

the situation with Batouti?

Well, of course, he knew.

But he pretended not to know, I think,

because Hatem Rushdy is the chief pilot--

NARRATOR: Badrawi confirms that Hatem

Rushdy is upset about Albert's harassment

of women at the hotel.

So Badrawi takes Rushdy's concerns to his old friend.

He didn't listen to you, what did you

tell him was going to happen?

MOHAMED BADRAWI: Nothing much, really.

See, he was on his way out.

We don't normally touch people when they're approaching 60.

I know.

I know.

I'm not saying that you are doing something wrong.

They are saying that you're doing something wrong.

Well, I know you are my friend.

MOHAMED BADRAWI: Well, we have a little patience

and then they're out.

NARRATOR: Badrawi would plead with Rushdy to be patient

with his old friend, considering

that Al-Batouti only had three months

to go before retirement.

Are you out of your mind?

We have been in the Air Force for 40 years.

All he needs is a few more months.

NARRATOR: Badrawi's interview confirmed that Rushdy did

believe Al-Batouti's behavior had to be dealt with,

and he denied Taha's claim of a meeting between the two

on the night of the crash.

But Captain Taha was not done.

He had another compelling story to add.

Taha revealed to the FBI how EqyptAir briefed

its pilots about the crash.

When they had done the transcripts of the cockpit

voice recorder, the EgyptAir chief of operations

called all flight crew to a special meeting in Cairo

and told us the facts, just the facts,

no commentary, no explanation of any technical problem.

He did not say anything, but all we pilots realized

that this was not an accident.

And then he told us not to talk to anyone about it.

Don't talk to your family.

Don't talk on the phone.

Don't talk to each other, he told us.

All of us realized that Batouti had done this on purpose.

NARRATOR: For the American families involved,

this was a case of 216 murders and one suicide.

In Egypt, large close-extended families

with a strong religious faith deny

that Egyptians commit suicide.

The story has many sides.

It has to do with religion.

It has to do with beliefs.

It has to do with the culture.

I think until today, still in the Egyptian culture,

people don't believe that Muslims or that Egyptians

or that people coming from that culture commit suicide.

NARRATOR: Cultural differences were not the only impediments

to this investigation.

LEW SCHILIRO: One of the difficulties

that we did have was that when we went over to Egypt

and attempted to really get into his background,

it became a very sensitive issue

for the Egyptian government.

NARRATOR: FBI efforts to learn about Al-Batouti's

personal life and family relations would be stymied.

It became almost to the point where we were never

really able to develop all the things

that we needed to get at.

NARRATOR: Finally, on March 21, 2002,

after a nearly $10 million investigation

over two years and five months, the NTSB publishes its report

and determines that--

READER: The probable cause of the EgyptAir Flight 990

accident is the airplane's departure from normal cruise

flight and subsequent impact with the Atlantic Ocean

as a result of the relief first officer's

flight control inputs.

NARRATOR: The Egyptian Civil Aviation

Authority responded angrily, and their response

read in part,

READER: It is obvious that the NTSB has not

done the type of professional accident

investigation expected by the Egyptian government.

NARRATOR: The NTSB's former director of aviation safety

takes exception to the Egyptian view.

What was unprofessional was the insistence

by the Egyptians in the face of irrefutable evidence

to anyone who knows anything about investigating airplane

accidents and who knows anything about aerodynamics

and airplanes was the fact that this airplane was

intentionally flown into the ocean.

No scenario that the Egyptians came up with

or that we came up with in which there were

some sort of mechanical failure in the elevator control system

would either match the flight profile

or was a situation in which the airplane was not recoverable.

NARRATOR: Like many of his countrymen,

the loyal nephew cannot believe his uncle

Gameel was a mass murderer.

This is a simple plane crash.

It was put and made like this for no reason.

It shows that it's a cover up.

NARRATOR: Greg Phillips takes pride

in having thoroughly investigated

every lead and every scenario.

GREG PHILLIPS: When we sign on to be accident investigators,

we do it with the idea that we're

going to keep the next one from happening,

not to cover up one that did because of whatever

reason may be given to us.

I've never known that to happen.

I've never even known it to come close to happening.

NARRATOR: There continue to be differing perspectives

on the crash of EqyptAir Flight 990

and unanswered questions remain for

broken and damaged families.

For many of them, answers to how and why this plane crashed

will forever be a painful mystery.