Aircraft Accident Brief Ntsb/aab-02/01 (Pb2002-910401): Egypt Air Flight 990, Boeing 767-366er, Su-Gap - National Transportation Safety Board Page 137
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160 flight deck. In making this argument, however, the NTSB failed to account for the literal nature
of the CVR translation and failed to interpret the literal translation with appropriate Egyptian
cultural nuances and references. Although the NTSB quotes a substantial portion of the CVR
transcript, several facts and statements are omitted. In light of the apparent bias of the NTSB’s
draft report, it is not possible to conclude that these omissions were either unintentional or
inadvertent.
After some discussion of changing places, the CFO told the RFO at 0140:35 “… if you
want to sit here, there’s no problem.” The RFO then said, “I’ll come back to you, I mean, I will
eat and come back, all right?” Out of the entire CVR transcript on the subject, the NTSB omitted
this exchange. In doing so, the NTSB left the reader without the critical evidence that the CFO
advised that changing places would be “no problem” and that the RFO offered to eat and come
back later -- an offer that the CFO refused, suggesting, instead, that the RFO eat his meal in the
cockpit.
Moreover, without considering either the tone or cultural context of the discussion, the
NTSB created the erroneous impression that the RFO was improperly “pulling rank.” According
to the Egyptian Team investigators who listened to the CVR, the RFO was not ordering the CFO
out of the cockpit, but rather, was simply asking to take an early turn on the flight deck -- a
procedure that is not contrary to any EgyptAir policy or ECAA regulation. Presumably, if any
adverse inference should be drawn from the RFO’s conduct, the Captain would have intervened
and made his views known. The fact that the Captain did not intervene is the best evidence that
the RFO’s request was not improper. 2
The draft report also highlights the RFO’s statement at 0147:55 “Look here’s the new
first officer’s pen. Give it to him. God spare you.” The only conceivable purpose in picking
this one statement from the otherwise normal, routine cockpit conversation is, again, to imply
2
Further, the CFO’s subsequent comments at 0140:57 and 0141:09 that the RFO “does whatever he pleases”
indicated that the RFO’s request to work early was in keeping with his past actions and was not part of a plan to
crash the airplane.
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