Free Republic

On October 31st 1999 EgyptAir Flight 990 struck the ocean with the loss of all on board. The end of the NTSB's final summary reads thusly "The National Transportation Safety Board determines that 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. The reason for the relief first officer's actions was not determined."

WASHINGTON, March 15 — A former EgyptAir pilot told American investigators two years ago that the co-pilot of EgyptAir 990 crashed the plane into the Atlantic Ocean to take revenge on a company executive who had just demoted him and was riding as a passenger, a person involved in the investigation said today. American aviation investigators say they do not know whether the explanation given by the pilot, which was first reported today in The Los Angeles Times, is true. Since the crash of the Boeing 767, Egyptian officials have argued that there was no evidence that the co-pilot, Gamil...

On Halloween 10 years ago today, EgyptAir Flight 990 nose-dived into the ocean off Nantucket from 33,000 feet, leaving the families of 217 children, grandparents and lovers forever haunted by the question: Why? “You just wish you knew what the reason was. Some things break your heart so much,” said Bobbie Bergman of Colorado. Bergman’s sister Paula Barnes, a one-time Marblehead resident, perished with their parents William and Tamsin Barnes and several family friends about 1:52 a.m. on Oct. 31, 1999, a half hour into what was to be a 10-hour passage from New York to Cairo.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 — Within hours of the terror attacks on Sept. 11, law enforcement officials say, F.B.I. agents intercepted telephone calls in which suspected associates of Al Qaeda in the United States were overheard celebrating the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In the following days, the officials said, agents swept in and arrested them and have been holding them since, some as material witnesses, based on the information picked up in the phone calls. They are among hundreds of people detained after the attacks. Agents made the requests for the intercepts barely minutes after the ...