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American Morning

The Big Question: Will We Ever Know the Truth About EgyptAir Flight 990?

Aired March 20, 2002 - 07:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: The big question this hour: Will we ever know the truth about Egyptair Flight 990? The National Transportation Safety Board is ready to close the book on the disaster in the air. Federal investigators this week are expected to issue their final report on the cause of the October 1999 Egyptair crash. NTSB sources say it will blame the co-pilot, Gamil al-Batouti, for flying the plane into the scene -- into the sea.

Kathleen Koch takes a look at the investigation and the man at the center of this tragic puzzle.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A desperate man bent on suicide and perhaps revenge, or a pilot struggling to save his plane. The two very different interpretations of Egyptair co-pilot Gamil al-Batouti's actions emerged as soon as the cockpit transcripts were released. Batouti, alone at the controls, repeats, "I rely on God," as the automatic pilot is disengaged, the engines throttled back, and the Boeing 767 sent into a steep dive.

The pilot bursts in, asking, "What's going on," and "Pull with me. Pull with me," before the plane plummets into the ocean. Egypt has long insisted there must have been a problem with the aircraft.

MOHAMED FAHIM RAYAN, EGYPTAIR CHAIRMAN: What we are nearly 99 percent sure that there was something in that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) system.

KOCH: But U.S. investigators found none, and got little response from Egypt when they asked for help, personnel, financial and military records to thoroughly check his background.

PETER GOELZ, FORMER NTSB MANAGING DIRECTOR: We couldn't get into the information that, frankly, would be available to us under any kind of normal investigative situation.

KOCH: The FBI did find the 59-year-old pilot had been accused of numerous sexual improprieties with guests and his staff at the New York hotel where Egyptair crews overnighted. Alleged incidents involved exposing himself, stalking female guests and propositioning hotel maids. NTSB officials say they were aware of claims Batouti was about to be disciplined by Egyptair for the behavior by being barred from U.S. routes, and that the airline official responsible for the alleged reprimand was on the plane.

GOELZ: We could just never get the information that he had -- confirmation that he had been confronted and told that he was off the international flights.

KOCH: Some families of the 217 killed on the plane want the U.S. to investigate whether Batouti had ties to the al Qaeda terrorist organization. One friend interviewed by the FBI, though, said Batouti led a comfortable life and had no strong political views.

(on camera): The final accident report has been delayed several times, apparently over concern it would hurt U.S. relations with Egypt, a key Arab ally. Sources say the NTSB will conclude that Batouti intentionally caused the crash, but won't speculate why.

Kathleen Koch, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now for more on what that final report on the Egyptair crash is likely to contain, and more importantly, perhaps, not contain, from Washington, Former NTSB Chairman Jim Hall, and from Chicago, Jim Brokaw, the President of Families of Egyptair 990 - gentlemen, it's nice to have you both with us.

Jim, let me start with you -- Jim Hall, that is. In light of the events of 9-11 and everything that's gone after, isn't the most important piece of information surrounding this plane crash any possible motive that this man may have had for taking the plane into the ocean? And if you buy that idea, why is it not expected to be mentioned at all in this report?

JIM HALL, FORMER NTSB CHAIRMAN: Well, the purpose of an NTSB investigation, of course, is to look very carefully at obviously safety issues and to prevent a recurrence of an event like this. The board's investigation was very thorough, very complete. And when the report comes out, it is going to point very clearly at the actions of the first officer, being the events that -- what led to the event.

CAFFERTY: But, again, the question of why he did this -- you know, if it was revenge that a supervisor was going to reprimand him for some deviant behavior in a New York hotel, that's one thing. If this was a guy who was rehearsing for the kind of thing we saw happen at the World Trade Center, that's a whole other thing. And apparently, we're not going to know anything that relates to that kind of question, which it seems to me is central to all of this, no?

HALL: Well the investigators have done everything we could in terms of a very exhaustive investigation to determine exactly what happened. Now the why of what happened I don't think we will ever really know, because we have really failed to have the cooperation of the Egyptian government and investigators in fully looking at the background and trying to answer that piece of the puzzle.

CAFFERTY: All right. Let me switch to the other Jim, Jim Brokaw, who is representing the families that were aboard Egyptair 990. You lost your father and stepmother in that crash, and you've been critical of both the Clinton administration and the Bush administration. Jim Hall, mentioning that we got virtually no cooperation -- we, the United States -- from the Egyptian government.

You've criticized both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush's administrations for not doing more to extract the information that we're talking about here this morning. What exactly would you have had them do?

JIM BROKAW, FAMILIES OF EGYPTAIR 990: Well, yeah, let me clarify that, if I could. In November of 1999, when Egypt expressed such outrage at the preliminary findings of the NTSB report, the Clinton administration acceded to Hosni Mubarak's demand that the criminal investigation not go forward, at least for the time being. That, of course, I can live with. What I cannot live with, of course, is that the Clinton administration was not able to muster the political leadership to see that the investigation -- even behind the scenes -- achieved the goals that it -- that were essential.

CAFFERTY: What could have been done, do you think, if the Egyptian government simply refused to cooperate, which apparently they did. I mean, is there anything that our government could have done in light of the fact that they were stonewalled when it came to trying to find out who this guy was, whether he was associated with terrorist groups, what he was all about?

BROKAW: Well, look, I don't know what the resources of the federal government are. I'm not a government official. I do know from having spoken with those at -- former people at FBI and elsewhere, it sounds to me, Jack, as if when FBI discovered that this was a -- that this was a -- an act of a -- for personal reasons, they essentially walked away and went on to other things.

Now, in the...

(CROSSTALK)

CAFFERTY: Are you suggesting -- I didn't mean to interrupt, but it sounds like you're saying that once they heard an explanation that perhaps was politically convenient, they said, "OK, that's fine. We're -- we're sort of relieved to hear that. Let's go on to (UNINTELLIGIBLE)."

BROKAW: We're done. That certainly is my impression. And that, as you say, is well before September 11th.

CAFFERTY: Yeah.

BROKAW: We, as family members, have never been able to shed the -- the fear that our -- that our -- that our loved ones were murdered as part of an act of terrorism. And let me say...

CAFFERTY: Well perhaps...

BROKAW: Let me say this, also. It's hard to feature Gamil al- Batouti himself as an al Qaeda operative. However, we know that he did have some vulnerabilities and some acute ones, especially for an airline pilot. And it strikes me that someone like that would be a prime candidate for infiltration of an airline.

CAFFERTY: Sure. The report, as I mentioned at the top of this, is due out later this week. We are having this discussion based on supposition that the report is not going to explore the motive, but I guess we'll know for sure when it comes out. In the meantime, let me thank both of you gentlemen for being with us. I'm going to have to stop this just because we're coming up against a break.

Jim Brokaw, thank you very much for being with us. He's the President of the Families of Egyptair 990 joining us from Chicago. And Jim Hall, the Former Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, thank you both very much.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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