U.S.

Flight 990 Remains Get Home

August 11, 2000 / 10:49 AM EDT / CBS/AP

The first remains of Egyptian victims of EgyptAir Flight 990 arrived home Saturday, more than a year after the plane bound from New York to Cairo crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.

Among them were the remains of co-pilot Gamil El-Batouty — who U.S. authorities suggested put the Boeing 767 into its fatal dive — which were being buried in a family plot.

Officials at Cairo International Airport confirmed the return of 33 sets of remains, including those of 20 Egyptian military officers. The plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the Massachusetts island of Nantucket on Oct. 31, 1999, killing all 217 aboard.

Military intelligence officers told reporters and photographers to stay away as the remains arrived. An airport official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said journalists had been denied access to avoid upsetting relatives who had come to the airport. Return of remains had been delayed by paperwork and difficulty identifying victims.

A near mid-air disaster

The pilot and key passengers of British Airways Flight 2069 describe how they fought to keep a cockpit intruder from crashing the plane in what authorities say was a suicide attempt.

EgyptAir provided a tent just outside the terminal for the victims' relatives and friends. Fewer than a dozen people were there as the plane approached Cairo.

A special funeral ceremony was held at the Armed Forces cemetery for the military officers. The defense minister, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, and the general chief of staff, Gen. Sherif Hatata, attended the closed ceremony, Egypt's Middle East News Agency reported.

Remains of five other victims, including those of El-Batouty, were delivered to their families, who were holding private burials. Families of the eight other victims whose remains arrived were making arrangements with Cairo cemeteries, the airport official said.

"It is as if he died yesterday," said Walid El-Batouty, the co-pilot's nephew, in a telephone interview Saturday evening. Relatives were praying over the remains at the time, burying them in the family plot in Cairo, he said.

El-Batouty has acted as a spokesman for the family since U.S. sources revealed a theory early in the investigation that his uncle had deliberately sent the plane into its fatal dive while alone in the cockpit — an idea angrily rejcted by the family and many Egyptians. He said the El-Batouty family is relieved the remains finally are back, but "they are suffering so much now as they are going through the whole process again."

Of the 217 people aboard the flight, 89 were Egyptian; by the one-year anniversary of the crash, remains of only 128 victims had been identified.

EgyptAir chairman Fahim Rayan said Saturday that attempts to identify remains continue in the United States, and more remains were expected to arrive in Egypt in three to four months.

A final determination of the cause of the crash has not been made. But Rayan said a final report from the U.S. side is expected by the end of February and that EgyptAir is planning to respond, Rayan said. He did not elaborate.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has reported no sign of mechanical failure, bolstering speculation that the co-pilot intentionally crashed the plane. Still, his nephew shares the suspicion of many Egyptians that the cause was mechanical.

"They wanted to give back the bodies and close the subject," Waleed El-Batouty said. The El-Batouty family is part of a wrongful death lawsuit against Boeing, the manufacturer of the plane.