EgyptAir Flight Data Released
By GLEN JOHNSON
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (Nov. 10) - The first sign of abnormality aboard EgyptAir Flight 990 came when the autopilot disconnected not long after the plane began what should have been a long period of cruise flight, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday.
NTSB Chairman Jim Hall, giving the first bits of information from the plane's flight data recorder, said that eight seconds after the autopilot disconnected, the New York-to-Cairo flight ''begins what appears to be a controlled descent'' from 33,000 feet to about 19,000 feet.
The recorder stopped shortly afterward, and the final five to 10 seconds of information on its tape are still being analyzed by safety board technicians, Hall said.
He dashed speculation that the plane's initial plunge was caused by a problem with a thrust reverser - the cause of a 1991 crash of another Boeing 767 in Thailand.
Thrust reversers are used to slow an airplane upon touchdown with the runway. One of EgyptAir's reversers was out of service at the time of the Oct. 31 crash.
''There is no evidence of thrust reverser deployment in the data we have,'' Hall said.
The tape could provide the best evidence yet into what doomed the jet.
Flight 990 took off early Halloween morning from New York's Kennedy International Airport, rising to 33,000 feet before plunging into the sea south of Nantucket Island, Mass., about 40 minutes after takeoff. All 217 people aboard were killed.
Investigators have not ruled out any possible cause, including mechanical failure, human error, sabotage and terrorism.
The flight data recorder was designed to capture over 150 types of information from 55 aircraft systems over a rolling 25-hour period.
Among them were such things as the plane's altitude, speed, spin and roll, when electrical power was cut off, and how the autopilot functioned.
Hall made his announcements moments after the safety board gave the public its first glimpse of the badly dented orange housing that contained the recorder, as well as the beige tape recorder itself.
The unit was pulled out of the ocean Tuesday and flown immediately to NTSB headquarters in Washington for analysis.
The recorder was still dripping sea water as officials from the board, flanked by Egyptian aviation officials and representatives of EgyptAir, held it up for photographers.
Hall said the recorder showed that the plane did not hit supersonic speed in its initial descent.
He did not comment on how the airplane behaved after a brief climb shown by radar data, or in its final plunge to the ocean, which also was tracked on radar.
Hall also said the safety board was forming a committee to review the flight recorder data, a routine action.
He identified the participants as the NTSB, the Federal Aviation Administration, Egyptian authorities, the Boeing Co., which made aircraft, and Pratt & Whitney, which made the two engines that powered it.
Hall did not mention the FBI, which would likely be involved if analysts suspected that the recorder documented any criminal activity. The agency continues to monitor the investigation.
He said Navy salvage crews continued to search for the plane's second so-called black box, the cockpit voice recorder. He told reporters the crews were no longer confused by the presence of an audio pinger that had fallen off the flight data recorder.
He said the crews were ''continuing to work on the debris pile that has the remaining pinging sound in it.''
The work was being conducted by two remote-controlled underwater robots, Deep Drone and Magnum.
Hall said that heavy seas were forecast for Thursday, followed by the possibility of good weather on Friday and Saturday. He said small vessels were being brought back to port for Thursday to take on new supplies and prepare themselves for the expected good weather.
He said the civilian salvage ship Carolyn Chouest, which was managing the Magnum, would remain on scene as long as conditions permitted. It was being accompanied by Coast Guard and Navy ships.
''Weather conditions continue to drive the pace of the operation,'' he said.
AP-NY-11-10-99 1825EST