Aircraft Accident Brief Ntsb/aab-02/01 (Pb2002-910401): Egypt Air Flight 990, Boeing 767-366er, Su-Gap - National Transportation Safety Board Page 67
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160 61
At 0149:54, the FDR recorded a very slight movement of the inboard ailerons and
both elevator surfaces beginning to rapidly pitch nose down (to about 3.6° nose-down
deflection). The nose-down elevator movement began after the throttle levers started to
move to idle; therefore, the relief first officer did not move the throttle levers to idle in
response to the nose-down elevator movement. As previously noted, the relief first officer
did not audibly express surprise or seem anxious or disturbed by the airplane’s sudden and
extreme nose-down movement or the reduction in load factor to near 0 G, nor did he call
for help during the accident sequence. Again, there was no evidence in the CVR, FDR,
ATC, or radar data of any system malfunction, conflicting air traffic, or other event that
would have prompted the relief first officer to adjust the throttle levers at all, let alone take
an action as drastic as moving the throttle levers to the idle position while in cruise flight
at night over the ocean or to then command a sustained nose-down elevator movement.
About 11 seconds after the initial nose-down movement of the elevators, the FDR
recorded additional (larger) movements of the inboard ailerons and the elevators started to
move further in the nose-down direction, decreasing the airplane’s load factor to negative
G loads. The relief first officer would have been gripping the control wheel with his
hand(s) when he applied these significant nose-down elevator control column inputs. It is
unlikely that he could make such significant control column inputs without (intentionally
or unintentionally) also affecting the control wheel’s lateral position and thus providing
some input to the ailerons. Therefore, these inboard aileron movements, and those that
occurred at 0149:54 (both of which were coincident with changes in the relief first
officer’s inputs to the control column), are consistent with evidence indicating that the
relief first officer was providing manual inputs to the flight controls during the accident
sequence.
Events After the Command Captain Returned to the Cockpit
Immediately after this increase in nose-down elevator movement, at 0150:06, the
CVR recorded the command captain exclaiming, “What’s happening? What’s
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happening?,” as he returned to the cockpit.
At 0150:08, the captain repeated his
question. While the captain was still speaking and moving toward his seat in the forward
portion of the cockpit (at 0150:07 and again at 0150:08), the relief first officer quietly
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repeated, “I rely on God.”
However, the relief first officer did not answer the captain’s
question. The Safety Board considers it unlikely that the captain—who was likely
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The Safety Board notes that several of its incident and accident investigations (including EgyptAir
flight 990) might have benefited from a visual record of cockpit images/events. On April 11, 2000, the
Board issued Safety Recommendations A-00-30 and -31. Safety Recommendation A-00-30 asked the FAA
to require that all aircraft operated under 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 121, 125, or 135 and
currently required to be equipped with a CVR and FDR be retrofitted with a crash-protected cockpit image
recording system by January 1, 2005. Safety Recommendation A-0-31 asked the FAA to require that all
aircraft manufactured after January 1, 2003; operated under 14 CFR Part 121, 125, or 135; and required to
be equipped with a CVR and FDR be equipped with two crash-protected cockpit image recording systems.
The Board specified that the cockpit image recording system should have a 2-hour recording duration and be
“capable of recording, in color, a view of the entire cockpit including each control position and each
action…taken by people in the cockpit.” Safety Recommendations A-00-30 and -31 are currently classified
“Open—Unacceptable Response.”
NTSB/AAB-02/01
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