- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some
of the words originally attributed to a crewman of EgyptAir Flight 990,
which bolstered a U.S. theory that the plane was deliberately crashed,
were in fact never spoken, a government official said on Friday.
-
- The embarrassing admission strengthens Egyptian opinion
that U.S. media and officials are rushing to judgement on the cause of
the crash and will further delay any decision to transfer leadership of
the accident probe to the FBI as a criminal matter.
-
- Closer review of the tape showed that the first sentence
of a widely published quote from the cockpit voice recorder was in fact
not uttered, the U.S. official said.
-
- ``I made my decision now. I put my faith in God's hands,''
was the incorrect translation from Arabic reported by Reuters and many
other news organizations from sources.
-
- But the official said there was only a reference to faith
in God prior to the autopilot being disconnected and the plane beginning
an unusually steep but controlled plunge toward the ocean.
-
- The Boeing 767 aircraft crashed on Oct. 31 into the sea
off Massachusetts less than an hour after taking off from New York for
Cairo, killing all 217 people on board.
-
- EgyptAir said Friday it had begun offering cash advances
in cases of financial hardship to the families of those who died.
-
- National Transportation Safety Safety Board Chairman
Jim Hall on Friday said the accident might have been the result of a deliberate
act but he scolded the media and government officials for fueling irresponsible
speculation.
-
- ``Over the last few days we have seen a virtual cyclone
of speculation about the course of this investigation,'' Hall told a news
conference.
-
- ``We have not released specific information from the
cockpit voice recorder,'' Hall said of the NTSB. ``I find it difficult
to believe that responsible public servants would engage in this type of
conduct.''
-
- Hall, questioned by reporters, said he did not back away
from safety board statements on the crash, including when he said Tuesday:
``We have so far found no sign of a mechanical or weather related event
that could have caused this accident.''
-
- The NTSB has said the engines were turned off during
the dive. There are also indications on the flight data recorder that the
captain and the co-pilot were in a contest over the controls, with the
captain wanting to pull the nose up and the person in the co-pilot's seat
commanding the nose to go down.
-
- It was Hall who raised the possibility that EgyptAir
990 might have crashed due to a criminal act, when he told reporters Monday
the safety board might yield leadership of the probe.
-
- But it was not until the briefing Friday that Hall said
he had met with FBI Director Louis Freeh ``to inform him this accident
might be the result of a deliberate act.''
-
- In the intervening days, news outlets, including Reuters,
obtained information from sources about information on the cockpit voice
recorder that officials said backed theories of a suicide plunge.
-
- The U.S. official described the translation error as
an ''innocent mistake'' but was unsure how it had happened. The official
said it may have been the difference between an early interpretation of
Arabic on the tape and a later listening.
-
- U.S. Rep. Jack Metcalf, a Republican from Washington
state, said he would switch to EgyptAir for a Nov. 30 flight from New York
to Cairo for meetings with Egyptian officials as a protest at the ``premature
and irresponsible speculation.''
-
- ``There are family members who are needlessly being anguished
by these stories that are being splashed across newspaper headlines,''
said Metcalf, who sits on the House of Representatives Aviation Subcommittee
and in whose district Boeing 777, 747, and 767 planes are built.
-
- U.S. theories that the crash may have been deliberate
have sparked anger in Egypt.
-
- After a day of diplomatic meetings and phone calls Tuesday,
Washington agreed with Cairo to delay letting the FBI control the probe
until additional Egyptian experts examine the evidence.
-
- ___________
-
- NTSB's Hall Re: 990 - Things Said So Far Were Lies!!
From NewsHawk Inc. <hawkeye@saber.net 11.20.99
-
- © 1999 NewsHawk® Inc.
-
- On Friday, Nov.19, NTSB head honcho Jim Hall said publicly
that everything that's been claimed thus far by government officials about
what's been heard on Fl. 990's cockpit voice recorder--as reported in the
mainstream press--has been "LIES"!
-
- Eh? LIES?? Well, isn't THAT a shocker (NOT)!
-
- And who's responsible for these "lies", we'd
dearly like to know? Hall seems to be trying hard to make it look as though
the media has been taking things out of context and misinterpreting information,
but the funny thing is the press been relying solely on little snippets
and hints which came right from the mouths of government hacks! So, it's
these government mouthpieces who are spinning the tales.
-
- THESE are the kind of tactics now used by the criminals
who've assumed control of our government to such a great extent at this
point.
-
- They leak these little tidbits ("lies") here
and there using lower-level government flunkies (we've totally LOST COUNT
by now how MANY different scenarios the feds have tried to put over regarding
Fl. 990), to see which lies have the best chance of staying afloat. Then,
if some particular scenario seems to be holding, they'll dig in and stay
with it.
-
- So far, EVERYTHING they've said about Fl. 990 in nearly
3 weeks has been going over like a lead balloon.
-
- Their approach could best be summed up as follows. Throw
enough shit at the wall, and SOME of it has GOT to stick. Pee-YEW! What
you end up with is a wall covered in crap and the WHOLE THING STINKS!!!
-
- Exactly HOW STUPID do these criminally insane vermin
think we are? How stupid do they think the Egyptians are?
-
- ENOUGH! Somebody... change the channel... PLEASE!
-
- And, by the way.... WHERE ARE THE BODIES!! Pieces, even?
It's against the laws of physics for absolutely no bodies or parts of bodies
to have floated to the surface by now. It's utterly ludicrous to suggest
that just because the jet hit the water at supersonic speeds, every single
body was pulverized into nothingness--an "explanation" which
is apparently being surreptitiously propagated and encouraged... by SOME
agency or other.
-
- Something is definitely totally "wrong" with
this aspect and it's not even being MENTIONED by the mainstream media.
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