Egyptian Authorities say Egypt Air Crash caused by unexplained problem in tail section. Also, do you remember all the speculation about why the Egypt Air Pilot turned off the autopilot? The fatal plunge of the Alaska Air Jet Began in exactly the same way. In addition, the Egypt Air Flight was reported to have plunged and then come up once before plummetting into the ocean. The parallels between the two crashes are startling. See the quote that follows this story. Any help in dredging up the previous reports would be appreciated:

February 08, 2000

NTSB To Interview EgyptAir Pilot

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) -- An EgyptAir pilot seeking asylum in England who says he has information about October's deadly crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 will be interviewed by U.S. accident investigators.

National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall, whose agency is investigating the crash that killed 217 people off the coast of Massachusetts, announced the decision Tuesday to send two staffers to London. He did not elaborate.

EgyptAir pilot Hamdi Hanafi Taha sought asylum last week after landing a plane at London's Heathrow Airport.

Airline officials say Taha has no special knowledge about the cause of the Oct. 31 crash near the island of Nantucket.

Neither American nor Egyptian investigators have released any official findings on the cause of the crash of the Boeing 767.

Some U.S. sources have speculated the plane's co-pilot, who died in the crash, deliberately brought the jet down. Egyptian authorities hotly dispute that theory. They say the most likely cause is an unexplained problem in the plane's tail section.

Link:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-other/2000/feb/08/020800710.html

About 20 minutes later, with the plane still cruising at 31,000 feet, the pilots turned on the autopilot again. Then - virtually simultaneously - the autopilot was turned off again and the stabilizer moved into the full nose-down position, Hall said. At that point, the crew was no longer dealing with anything that could be termed a routine stabilizer problem.

The plane began to dive at a rate of 7,000 feet per minute, more than three times the normal descent rate from from cruising altitude. On the voice recorder, the crew could be heard trying to arrest the dive. The planes speed brakes - flaps on the wings - were deployed, and after about a minute Flight 261 leveled off at 24,300 feet.

For the next nine minutes or so, the plane apparently was under control.

"Then things began to happen very quickly," Hall said.

Suddenly, at about the same time the loud noise was heard, the plane pitched down, ultimately reaching a nose-down angle of 70 degrees.

"At this point, they had no pitch control at all," Aaronson said. "They are turning left, right, pulling, pushing, trying every combination to find something that will give them control. But its too late - at this

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 09, 2000

Answers

Uh....so the moral of the story is that NOT running on the "computer" can lead to crashes.... Carl, these are two different planes, two different designs, and I will await the official investigation results in both incidents.

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), February 09, 2000.

Two different planes, two different designs...hmmm, what about the autopilot...were they built by the same company/running on the same software?

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 09, 2000.

Of course it was a problem in the tail. It doesn't take a whole lot of brains to look at that accident and look at the latest and see the same story.

-- Sheri (wncy2k@nccn.net), February 09, 2000.

Good work again Carl!

I've suspected all along that this could be the exact same problem, the way the pilots were fighting to get control of the stabilizers. Even the way the aircraft descended was similar.

"caused by unexplained problem in tail section"

Yes, Y2K malfunctions have been proven to be very unexplainable. When these chips malfunction, they do the strangest things. Even many programmers can't figure out the way they react when they are not compliant. I wonder what other kinds of strange things will be happening on these planes in the near future.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), February 09, 2000.

Hey birdbrain, you're slipping. Didn't you notice? Alaska Air: 31st day of the month. Egypt Air: 31st day of the month. They must both have had the same model of servo controller with non-Y2k-compliant chips. What were those Model and Part Numbers again?

-- Mikey2k (mikey2@he.wont.eat.it), February 09, 2000.

767 Down

767's Falling From the Sky?

EgyptAir and Flight 990

767 Down

767's Falling From the Sky?

EgyptAir and Flight 990

30 Egyptian military officers among passengers

'Event' in EgyptAir plane's tail caused crash

Egypt Air Flight 990 Amateur Sleuth Here

OT: Over 30 High Ranking Egyptian Military on Board Flight 990

UN flag backdrop for CNN coverage of downed Egyptian aircraft, 3:58 P.M. ET?

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), February 10, 2000.

Mikey2k and FactLess,

You folks continue to present NOTHING of value in this discussion.

If there is a COVERUP of any kind with regard to these crashes the folks involved should be prosecuted vigorously.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), February 10, 2000.

You folks continue to present NOTHING of value in this discussion.

And what of value have you added? What has jeffDD added of value (and no, "Go Hawk!" does not constitute something of value). Mike, FF, and myself have all offered valid, fact based commentary and the only response that Hawk ever gives is that they are morons. He hasn't even bothered to respond to my posts -- is he intimidated or what?

If there is a COVERUP of any kind with regard to these crashes the folks involved should be prosecuted vigorously.

Absolutely! But what does this have to do with the fact that Hawk has been spreading factually incorrect statements (e.g. there are NO servomotors or servocontrollers in the stabilizer control system) and unsubstantiated accusations of corruption and illegal acts by the NTSB.

IF there is a coverup, it should be investigated. Big IF. I see very little common to these two crashes. In Egypt Air, a relief pilot offered to take his shift early, waited until all other crew was out of the cabin, said a prayer, disengaged the autopilot, and forced his control yoke forward to initiate a dive. Another pilot tried to correct it by pulling up on the other yoke but was unsuccessful. There is incontrovertible evidence of this from the FDR and CVR.

Alaska #261 pilots fought with a problematic stabilizer for the entire flight, the same stabilizer that had been looked at at least twice before for problems, and then they had a catastrophic failure while trying to make an emergency landing. Indications are that the stabilizer moved into the full nose down position by itself, without the pilot's or autopilot's intervention. While there is no conclusive evidence as of yet, this is consistent with a motor relay being stuck in the open position which is not unheard of.

So, all available evidence for the first one indicates a problem free flight, suddenly crashing due to manual intervention by someone who should not have been in the cockpit in the first place. In the second, all available evidence points to some type of mechanical trouble which eventually caused a major failure, either to the internal workings of the stabilizer or to the strucural integrity of it.

-- My Full Name (My@email.address), February 10, 2000.

My Full Name, whoever the hell you are. I haven't responded to your posts because you don't have a shred of credibility in my eyes, even less than Mickey and Cherri.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), February 10, 2000.

That's exactly the response I expected Hawk and you didn't disappoint me. Regardless of what YOU think about me, you are still unable to refute anything I said. So be it!

Also, I think we should all thank the Cascadians for posting the links above related to the Egypt Air crash as it clearly demonstrates to normal modus operandi for Hawk and his buddies. Look at the earliest reports and Hawk and Andy et. al. are talking about how it must be Y2K related because it happened right at the switch from Daylight Savings Time. Then, after it was pointed out that aircraft use GMT and don't care about DST, they jumped on the unconfirmed reports about the jet stopping at Edwards AFB. Obviously, they picked up a bomb which blew the plane apart after it left JFK. Even though there was never a shred of evidence that the plane had ever stopped there, that was now the story. It blew up and the evidence would be overwhelming, the government is behind it, they are setting up Bin Laden, etc. Imagine their dismay when bodies and parts were found and absolutely not one iota of evidence pointing towards an explosion. Did they back off? NOOOOOO!!! They just moved onto another topic until it came back into the news. Now, it is caused by a malfunction in the tail, just like flight #261. Even though the aircraft are completely different, made by different companies, have different flight control surfaces, and different flight control systems, obviously the same thing happened in each case.

Maybe one of you geniuses can then explain why this alleged timing problem showed up several hours before midnight GMT in the case of Flight 261 and several hours after midnight GMT on Flight 990? And, what about all of the other 767's and MD-80's out there, why are they all still flying? Surely, more than one of each type was infected by these mysterious non-compliant chips.

-- My Full Name (My@email.address), February 10, 2000.

Gee Chicken-Hawk, your awfully quiet this afternoon about Flight #261. What happened? Oh, I'm sorry.. its probably time to start conjuring up alternate theory No. 1 now isn't it? Take your time. I'm hoping for something that links this to Waco or Oklahoma City!

-- My Full Name (My@email.address), February 10, 2000.