Egypt’s Dismissal of Terrorism in Russian Plane Crash Creates a Rift
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The widening chasm between Egypt and the world, some say, recalls an earlier crash, in 1999, when
EgyptAir Flight 990 plunged into the ocean off the coast of Nantucket Island. Although American investigators said flight records pointed to the decisions of an Egyptian pilot, the Egyptian government blamed a malfunction in the Boeing airplane, and 17 years later the Egyptian-American dispute over the cause is still unresolved.
In that case, the Egyptian investigation was cloaked in mystery and, critics say, politicized from that start.
“I don’t anticipate the Egyptian investigation here to be any more transparent than their work on EgyptAir 990,” James E. Hall, the former head of the
National Transportation Safety Board who oversaw that investigation, said in an interview.
The desires of Egypt’s political leaders to minimize the threat of terrorism would almost certainly set the course of its investigators, he said. “The air safety investigators in Egypt are under the thumb of the government,” he said, “and I don’t think that has changed.”
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Under international aviation rules, representatives from France, Ireland, Russia and Germany are included in the official committee investigating the crash because of various connections to the plane or the flight, and European officials briefed on the inquiry say others in the committee have urged the Egyptians to disclose more.
But the rules give the Egyptians control over any public statements, and so far Egypt has rebuffed admonitions to disclose any preliminary details of what they may have learned, including whether explosive residue had been detected, the pattern of burn marks on the wreckage or on human remains, or of whatever may have been gleaned from the plane’s flight-recording devices.
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