Aircraft Accident Brief Ntsb/aab-02/01 (Pb2002-910401): Egypt Air Flight 990, Boeing 767-366er, Su-Gap - National Transportation Safety Board Page 124
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160 such information be made available to accident investigation authorities. The
Egyptian Team also volunteered to take whatever steps might be necessary to
protect any sensitive information. The Egyptian requests for further radar
analysis were based on the appearance of high-speed radar returns on tracks
converging with Flight 990. The official response from the NTSB and the FAA
was that the returns in question were “clutter or strobing,” although no work was
done to verify this speculative conclusion.
•
There were constant inaccuracies in the FDR data. On five occasions, the NTSB
presented the “final” FDR data to the Egyptian Team and each time sufficient
errors were identified to require the “final” report to be withdrawn and
recomputed.
•
Key aircraft components were not recovered even though a second effort was
conducted to recover more wreckage. The second effort, scheduled for 10 days,
lasted only 2 days and was initiated and undertaken without any consultation with
the Egyptian Team. Critical components that were not recovered include two
elevator PCA’s, one bellcrank assembly, the RAT, the QAR and portions of the
elevators.
•
The Egyptian Team was hampered by the inability to communicate and
coordinate directly with Boeing, Honeywell and other component manufacturers.
All communications were required to go through the NTSB which, often at the
group chairman level, filtered, modified, or in some cases, denied the Egyptian
request.
The most serious shortcoming of the NTSB investigation was the failure to seek out and
address all the related safety issues. Once fixated on the deliberate act theory, the NTSB
virtually ignored the airworthiness issues that subsequently emerged relative to the Boeing 767
elevator bellcrank assemblies. These matters were brought to the attention of the FAA only after
the ECAA took the initiative.
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