Section A · Page 7
The University Daily Kansan
Friday, January 21, 2000
Nation/World
EgyptAir 990 investigation points to intentional crash
The Associated Press
NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. Weeks after the last pile of debris from EgyptAir 990 was pulled from the sea, investigators say they are more convinced than ever of their original theory. The jet was crashed deliberately.
The examination of the shattered Boeing 767, some 70 percent of which was recovered from the ocean floor, has revealed no signs of a mechanical failure that would have caused the plane to plummet 40 minutes into its 11-hour flight, according to three officials close to the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"Everything leads everyone to believe that the plane was mechanically sound and it was doing what it was supposed to," one government official told The Associated Press. "There's just no smoking gun" to indicate mechanical failure.
The National Transportation Safety Board has said there are no plans to reconstruct the aircraft, which speaks volumes about the
investigation, experts said.
"I think they're fairly convinced they know what happened based on the radar data, flight data and voice data," said Barry Schiff, a TWA pilot for 34 years who instructed trainees on the Boeing 767 and now serves as an aviation safety consultant.
Investigators have said the cockpit voice recorder contained some utterance, perhaps a prayer, before the plane went into its fatal plunge. But Schiff said the flight and radar data alone make it clear someone forced the aircraft down Oct. 31 off the Massachusetts island of Nantucket, killing all 217 aboard.
"My feelings and conclusions are based on the factual data made available through various sources, and to me it seems rather compelling that is what happened," Schiff said.
The NTSB's working theory remains the plane was sent into a nose dive by relief co-pilot Gamil El-Batouty, who took control of the aircraft shortly after takeoff from New York's Kennedy Airport,
according to two officials close to the investigation.
The FBI has been involved from the start and has uncovered no evidence of terrorism or conspiracy, according to one of the federal officials.
EgyptAir and El-Batouty's family have rejected the theory of an intentional crash.
"If the pilots were American would they dare to say the same things?" El Batouty's nephew, Walid El-Batouty, told The Associated Press in an interview last week in Egypt. "We've been shattered, humiliated and accused."
EgyptAir Chairman Mohamed Fahim Rayan said in Cairo that the plane's nearly sonic-speed descent was the result of "something happening" in the tail apparatus.
Jim Danaher, who retired as an NTSB supervisor in 1998 after 28 years, said recovering debris from the crash was important to rule out any other possibilities. But he said that reassembling the plane was unnecessary given the other evidence.
UNITED NATIONS — Sen. Jesse Helms, who has made a career of lambasting the United Nations, kept up the attack as he addressed the Security Council yesterday, saying Americans feel "a lack of gratitude" from the world organization.
Senator criticizes United Nations
The Associated Press
Helms, R.N.C., who has previously branded U.N. officials as "dysfunctional" and "cry babies," tempered his criticism by proposing a new spirit of cooperation with the world body and suggested formal, annual visits between members and U.S. lawmakers.
"If we are to have a new beginning, we must endeavor to understand each other better," Helms said in the first-ever address by a U.S. lawmaker to the Security Council.
Despite his courtly tone and offer of a "hand of friendship," delegates reacted coolly to Helms' litany of U.N. excesses and fallings.
American tardiness in meeting its payments and Helms' insistence on a lower U.S. contribution have hindered and not helped peacekeeping efforts, said Jeremy Greenstock, the British envoy.
Sergey Lavrov, Russia's representative, complained that the United States failed to abide by terms of a U.N. budget that all members approved.
"All the other members of the United Nations expected the United States to keep its word." he said.
expected the United States to keep its word," he said.
"The money we spend on the U.N. is not charity," Helms declared. "To the contrary, it is an investment — an investment from which the American people rightly expect a return."
Congress last year voted to pay $926 million in back U.S. dues in three years.
The United States paid a $100 million installment late last year. But to get the rest, the United Nations must meet about a dozen conditions drafted by Helms, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the committee's senior minority member.
The conditions includes a reduction the U.S. share of the U.N. peacekeeping budget from the current 31
percent to 25 percent and of the regular budget from 25 percent to 22 percent.
Helms said the United Nations must also trim its spending and not draw the United States into entangling alliances.
"A United Nations that seeks to impose its presumed authority on the American people without their consent beks for confrontation, and — I want to be candid — eventual U.S. withdrawal." Helms asserted.
The senator also accused the General Assembly of an anti-American bias.
Helms: Gave first address by a U.S. lawmaker to the Security Council
Helms was invited to speak by
U. S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who holds the rotating council chairmanship.
Despite the blunt exchanges, Holbrooke said he hoped Helms' appearance would help in bringing to a close a chapter of great tension between Washington and the U.N.
The full 188-member General Assembly must approve any major changes in the organization's operations and cost-sharing formula.
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