Gamil al-Batouti: "Tawakilt ala Allah"
Mike Schneider '
Quoting from below:
> Investigators now have “a very good picture of what happened,”
> said an FBI official last week. “The problem is why.” An FBI team
> reportedly arrived in Cairo at the weekend to join Egyptian
> investigators in the delicate task of probing the past of Gamil
> al-Batouti. They were looking for a motive for suicide — depression,
> family problems — or some tie to a terrorist cell.
Q. How many members of the Egyption government (whether politicians,
appointees or soldiers) were on the plane, and was that number out of the
ordinary for the flights to Egypt? EgyptAir, it is noted, is a government
airline.
In article <38380285...@bellsouth.net>, biln...@bellsouth.net wrote:
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/337208.asp
>
> NEWSWEEK
> November 21, 1999
>
> Relief pilot Gamil al-Batouti ‘I put my trust in God’
>
> An exclusive, inside report on Flight 990, the copilot and the rising
> tensions over the key question: Was it suicide?
>
> By Daniel Klaidman and Mark Hosenball
>
> NEWSWEEK
> Nov. 21 — “Tawakilt ala Allah” means, literally, “I put my trust in
> God.” The fact that Gamil al-Batouti said these words shortly after he
> took over the controls of EgyptAir Flight 990 is meaningless, most
> Islamic experts argued last week. Many Muslims utter the oath routinely,
> before driving the car pool or starting to cook dinner. But, Newsweek
> has learned, Batouti did not say “Tawakilt ala Allah” just once.
> According to knowledgeable sources, he repeated the oath as many as 14
> times, urgently and prayerfully as, investigators believe, he sent the
> Boeing 767 into a fatal nose-dive.
>
> ‘The frequency and the way the invocation was made did not indicate
> that he was using it as part of everyday speech.’ - — SENIOR
> LAW-ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL
>
> A GOD-FEARING family man, Batouti seems like an unlikely
> candidate for suicide or mass murder. Nonetheless, his words, taken
> together with the flight data recorded on the doomed airliner’s “black
> boxes,” have largely convinced American investigators that Batouti was
> responsible for taking his own life and the lives of 216 others.
> Newsweek has learned that a team of Egyptian technical experts and
> security officials sent over to examine the evidence initially agreed
> with the Americans’ suicide theory — until they were overruled by their
> higher-ups in Cairo last week. A second, more senior team of Egyptian
> officials, led by an Air Force general who is close to President Hosni
> Mubarak, was dispatched to Washington. While some U.S. investigators
> swore that all sides were trying to cooperate and remain open-minded,
> other top law-enforcement officials told Newsweek that the Egyptians
> were seeking to “stonewall and obstruct” the probe, a charge the
> Egyptians deny.
> For public consumption, the American government was not rushing
> to judgment. National Transportation Safety Board chairman Jim Hall
> excoriated “unidentified sources” who have led the media to “speculate
> on undocumented information” that can be “flat-out wrong.” Some of the
> speculation in the press has been off-base. Batouti did not say, as
> originally leaked to some media outlets, “I have made my decision now,”
> before driving Flight 990 into the sea. But well-informed sources,
> speaking to Newsweek on Friday after Hall delivered his blast, made
> clear that the tapes are deeply incriminating to the EgyptAir copilot.
>
> EGYPT’S VIEW
> Why are the investigators publicly downplaying Batouti’s role? In
> part, they were trying to show sensitivity to his family, but mostly,
> the Clinton administration wants to avoid a diplomatic dust-up with
> Egypt. Interviewed in the street, Egyptians almost universally refused
> to believe that one of their countrymen could have done such a thing —
> especially while invoking God. Washington is in no hurry to disillusion
> them. The State Department, CIA and FBI regard the Mubarak regime, which
> has cracked down on Islamic extremism in recent years, as an essential
> ally in the war on terrorism. <Picture>Newsweek magazine reports that
> the cockpit voice recorder tapes are ’deeply incriminating to the
> co-pilot.’ NBC’s Dawna Friesen reports.
>
> The emerging details of the last moments of Flight 990 chilled
> American air travelers. A new Newsweek Poll shows that fear of flying on
> commercial airliners is at a record high; fully half of those surveyed
> said they are frightened at least some of the time when they fly, up
> from only one third in 1983. Air passengers increasingly, and
> justifiably, complain about long-delayed flights, shabby, jampacked
> planes and harried or surly attendants. After the bizarre crash of
> Flight 990, do overstressed frequent fliers have to worry about an
> unstable pilot in the cockpit? In fact, as the airlines ceaselessly and
> correctly remind their customers, flying has never been safer. Even so,
> air travel and safety are regulated by a rickety and uneven system of
> government bureaucrats working with private airlines and manufacturers —
> sometimes too closely, sometimes not closely enough. It’s not clear how
> much more strain the system can take.
>
> •Timeline of jet's final hours
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/329778.asp
>
> Thanks to the recovery of the black boxes from the ocean floor off the
> New England coast, it is possible to reconstruct the final, terrifying
> minutes of Flight 990. There is nothing to indicate a mechanical
> malfunction, bad weather or a bomb. So far, all the evidence points to
> one unlikely suspect: a 59-year-old copilot who liked to play squash,
> read comic books, worship Allah and care for his extended family.
> Gamil al-Batouti was on board Flight 990 as a relief pilot,
> expected to take over the copilot’s seat a few hours into the 11-hour
> flight between New York and Cairo. About a half hour out of JFK Airport,
> however, Batouti can be heard asking the captain, Ahmed al-Habashi, if
> he could fly the plane, according to knowledgeable sources. The captain
> agreed. Turning over the controls to Batouti, Captain Habashi left the
> cockpit, perhaps to use the bathroom.
> On the cockpit flight recorder, government sources tell Newsweek,
> Batouti can be heard repeating “Tawakilt ala Allah” over and over.
> (EgyptAir has confirmed to U.S. investigators that Batouti’s voice can
> be heard on the tape.) “The frequency and the way the invocation was
> made,” said a senior law-enforcement official, “did not indicate that he
> was using it as part of everyday speech.” This source said that Batouti
> repeated the oath exactly 14 times. Another source close to the
> investigation told Newsweek that he was unsure just how many times
> Batouti invoked the oath, but noted that he kept on saying it, both
> right before and right after the plane went into a dive.
> At 1:49.46 a.m., someone — almost certainly Batouti —
> disconnected the plane’s autopilot. Eight seconds later, the flight-data
> recorder shows, he pushed forward the copilot’s yoke — the joystick and
> steering column — and throttled down the engines, putting the plane’s
> nose down at a 40-degree angle. The plunge was so precipitous that the
> passengers inside the cabin experienced a sense of weightlessness, as if
> they were flying in space. The plane plummeted faster and faster.
> Fourteen seconds into the dive, as Flight 990 neared the speed of sound
> — too fast for a big commercial jet — an alarm, signaling that the
> aircraft had exceeded 0.86 Mach speed, sounded in the cockpit with a
> siren and accompanied by a flashing light. A few seconds later, as air
> rushing under its wings exerted a natural lift, the plane nosed up
> slightly. Inside the plane, once weightless passengers were slammed
> against their seats by the kind of G-forces a fighter pilot might feel
> maneuvering his plane in a dogfight. Refreshment carts would have become
> heavy projectiles.
> Amid this chaos, investigators believe, Captain Habashi was
> struggling back into the cockpit. According to the Batouti family, the
> two EgyptAir pilots often dined and shopped together on foreign trips.
> On the voice recorder, through a tremendous clatter and roar, Habashi
> can be heard asking his flying mate, “What’s happening? What’s going
> on?” Habashi somehow scrambled into the pilot’s seat and began pulling
> back his yoke in a desperate attempt to lift the plane out of its dive.
>
> ‘WORK WITH ME’
> “Work with me. Pull with me,” he called on Batouti. But Batouti
> apparently worked against his captain. Only one second after Habashi
> began fighting to pull the plane out of its dive, the flight recorder
> shows, someone — investigators believe it was Batouti — reached down and
> flipped a switch to turn off the plane’s engines. At the same time, he
> continued to press forward on his yoke to keep the nose of the plane
> pointed down. As a result, the plane’s elevator panels on the tail
> split, the left one, on the captain’s side, pushing the plane up, the
> right one, on the copilot’s side, driving it down. This can happen only
> if each pilot exerts enormous pressure on the control stick.
> Investigators regard it as key evidence that the pilots were fighting
> against each other. A few seconds later somebody pulled a handle —
> located on the pilot’s side but within easy reach of the copilot — that
> extends the plane’s air brakes, metal panels along the wing. Had the
> plane just begun its dive, air brakes might have slowed and steadied the
> plane. At this stage, however, the brakes just made the aircraft that
> much harder to control.
> At 1:50.37, or 51 seconds after the plane began to dive,
> electrical power started to cut off. The black boxes stopped recording.
> Inside the main cabin, the lights went out, save the dim glow marking
> the emergency exits and the strip lights along the floor. The plane
> entered its death throes. A few seconds after power began to fade, the
> thicker air of lower altitudes bounced the nose up, and Flight 990 began
> to ascend, from 16,000 feet to as high as 24,000 feet in a little over
> half a minute. The plane nosed down again, this time for good. As a
> giant airplane rips apart, the tail usually goes first. Radar images
> showed the plane beginning to break into pieces at 10,000 feet. When
> Flight 990 hit the Atlantic Ocean, the pieces were shattered into
> fragments.
> Investigators now have “a very good picture of what happened,”
> said an FBI official last week. “The problem is why.” An FBI team
> reportedly arrived in Cairo at the weekend to join Egyptian
> investigators in the delicate task of probing the past of Gamil
> al-Batouti. They were looking for a motive for suicide — depression,
> family problems — or some tie to a terrorist cell.
> Few clues hint at either. Last week the suspect’s nephew Walid
> al-Batouti gave Newsweek a glimpse of the prosperous, thoroughly
> Westernized world of the Batouti family. Walid, whose business card
> reads “Egyptologist” and who describes himself as a freelance tour
> guide, lives in an affluent suburb of Cairo. He wears designer glasses,
> speaks flawless English and employs a maid. His cell phone rings
> constantly. The Batouti family, he explained, is landed and well-to-do.
> Uncle Gamil was “the rock” of the family. He organized family reunions
> in his two-story villa in the 10th of Ramadan, a prosperous satellite
> community of Cairo. He owned land on the Nile Delta and wore Italian
> ties. “At the al-Batouti house,” said Walid, “there was always the best
> of everything.”
> Batouti had no apparent history of depression. According to
> Walid, Gamil al-Batouti was a sober-minded husband and father. He and
> his wife, Umaima, were about to celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary
> with a trip to New York and had invited Walid and his family to join
> him. Gamil’s son Karim, who also spoke to Newsweek, recalled his father
> as prudent and supportive. Now in his last year at university, Karim,
> 21, lamented, “The thing I miss most is his advice — about practical
> things in life.” When he died, the senior Batouti was trying to find
> Karim a bank job. Karim worried about his mother, whom he described as
> “very sick and tired.” “We’re afraid to lose her, too,” said Karim.
> “Then we won’t have anybody.”
> Batouti did not seem dispirited about retiring. He was looking
> forward to a new life, maybe starting a new business, Walid said. The
> fact that Batouti never made captain at EgyptAir has led to speculation
> that he harbored resentments against the airline. Yet there is no
> evidence that Batouti ever sought a promotion from copilot to captain.
> He never took the necessary courses or examination. Fellow pilots say he
> had little financial incentive to become a captain. As a copilot of a
> Boeing 767, one of the largest commercial planes in the fleet, flying
> transatlantic routes, he earned more than most of EgyptAir’s captains.
> Batouti, it’s true, was not a docile employee. He was an active
> supporter of the pilots union, one of a group of pilots who criticized
> patronage and alleged corruption in the management of EgyptAir. Along
> with others, Batouti protested that the airline’s life-insurance policy
> for pilots was stingy. In the event of an accident, a pilot’s family
> would receive only about $15,000. Last July, the airline boosted the
> amount to $75,000, but Batouti and his colleagues failed to persuade the
> airline to improve its paltry pension plan, which pays retired pilots
> only about $200 a month. Nearly three years after the NTSB determined
> that a faulty fuel tank aboard the Boeing 747 caused the explosion that
> destroyed TWA Flight 800 in July 1996, Boeing is still trying to prove
> that the plane was brought down by a missile or a bomb.
>
> Investigators will probe Batouti’s finances and private life,
> looking for hidden debts and blackmail. As a copilot, Batouti probably
> earned about $25,000 a year, a modest salary by Western standards, but
> upper-middle-class pay in Egypt. Unless he had an independent income, he
> may have been living beyond his means. He seemed to be bankrolling two
> of his sons, particularly one who just graduated from the police academy
> in Cairo. The father had just sent the son $300 for his cell-phone bill
> — pretty steep in a country where $300 is close to the average yearly
> income. Pilots who knew Batouti in Cairo said that he liked to live
> well. They recalled that when he visited New York, he eschewed the
> subway for taxis and dined at fancy restaurants.
> Batouti also had an expensive and troubling family illness to
> attend to — his 10-year-old daughter, Aya, suffers from lupus, a disease
> of the immune system. Batouti had taken Aya “three or four times” to Los
> Angeles to be treated at UCLA Medical Center, said Beverly Hills
> neurologist Mohsen Hamza, who describes himself as a “longtime friend
> and relative” of Batouti’s. But, Hamza emphasized to Newsweek, “there is
> absolutely nothing to the rumor that Batouti was despondent over the
> child’s treatment. In fact, I just spoke to the child’s physician at
> UCLA. He thinks it’s a joke the way the media have conjured up this
> theory. He said Aya had done fantastically. It’s ridiculous to say he
> brought the plane down because of the child’s condition. We all have
> children who get sick.”
> Could Batouti have been a terrorist? He does not fit the normal
> profile: of an over-achieving, educated, idealistic young man from a
> rural environment who comes to the city, finds no decent job and turns
> to extremism to purge Islam of the corrupting influence of Western
> culture. That is the way police describe the fanatics who massacred 58
> foreign tourists and four Egyptians at Luxor in 1997. To be sure, most
> of the young murderers at Luxor had no known links to any terrorist
> organization. They were apparently signed up by an extremist Islamic
> group to perform a single, suicidal act. It is also a fact that radical
> groups like Al Jihad have been able to recruit successfully within the
> educated middle class. Still, Batouti was not an obvious candidate for
> martyrdom. To demonstrate that he was not a fanatic, the Batouti family
> has shown home videos of parties at the Batouti house where men and
> women dance together, something that ultraorthodox Muslims would not
> countenance. He was an observant Muslim who made pilgrimages to Mecca
> six times, most recently six months ago with a group of EgyptAir pilots.
> Walid al-Batouti scoffed at the suggestion that Uncle Gamil had secretly
> signed on with an extremist sect. “He hated terrorists,” said Walid,
> “because it affected us. It affected me personally.” The tourist
> industry that helped support both EgyptAir and Walid’s tour-guide
> business was devastated after the Luxor killings.
> Because they fear another fall-off in tourism, as well as for
> reasons of national pride, many Egyptians hotly accused the United
> States of trying to shift the blame for the crash of Flight 990 while
> covering up U.S. complicity. “The Americans are spreading these lies
> about my husband to hide their role in sabotaging the plane,” Batouti’s
> widow, Umaima, told a neighbor and friend last week. Many Egyptians tend
> to look for plots and conspiracies. Some believe that Washington
> officials are in cahoots with Boeing to conceal evidence of a mechanical
> failure. Others suggest that Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service,
> was behind the crash. As “evidence,” they point out that EgyptAir and
> the Israeli national airline share the same runway at Kennedy Airport,
> have similar schedules, and that both airlines’ crews stay at the same
> New York hotel. Some Egyptian officials point to what one calls “the new
> Bermuda Triangle.” They note that TWA 800, Swissair Flight 111 and John
> F. Kennedy Jr. all went down along the Long Island-New England
> coastline. (Swissair actually went down off the coast of Canada.) “This
> route has to be studied,” insists Nabil Osman, an Egyptian Information
> Ministry official.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It is easy to make light of these suggestions, but many
> Americans, who are known to entertain their own conspiracy theories, are
> left uneasily wondering whether they, too, could be victims of such a
> freakish disaster. Statistics about the safety records of airlines are
> not entirely reassuring. Government regulators are understaffed and
> underfunded and, in some cases, underperform. To a disturbing degree,
> the chance that an addled pilot will take the controls of an unsafe
> commercial airliner depends on the good faith of the airlines and
> airplane manufacturers. As time goes on, and the sky becomes more
> crowded, the self-preservation instincts of pilots and the companies
> they work for may not be enough.
> In the United States, the federal government does not require
> airlines to give its pilots psychological tests. (Nor do most state-run
> foreign airlines, including EgyptAir.) American pilots are tested on
> their flying skills once or twice a year and undergo physical
> examinations by doctors, usually twice a year. The doctor may ask about
> stress at home or on the job or drinking habits, but there is no
> procedure for spotting deep-seated psychic wounds. This may sound more
> ominous than it is. Instances of emotionally unstable pilots putting an
> airplane at risk are very rare. Until Flight 990, suicide was suspected
> in only three crashes in the last 20 years, all of them on foreign
> airlines.
> The best safeguard against crazed pilots is the pilot sitting
> next to him, says John Mazor, a spokesman for the pilots union. For the
> sake of their own safety and professionalism, pilots keep a close eye on
> each other. The pilots union and most airlines have confidential
> programs to help pilots with personal problems like alcoholism. The
> raffish boozing-and-flying fraternity once associated with pilots is
> long gone: five out of six pilots who enter alcohol rehab are referred
> by someone other than themselves.
>
> TWA FLIGHT 800
> More worrisome, perhaps, is the tense relationship between the
> airline manufacturers and the government regulators who investigate
> crashes, the National Transportation Safety Board. Lawyers and the fear
> of litigation have muddled cooperation between the government and
> private industry. Nearly three years after the NTSB determined that a
> faulty fuel tank aboard the Boeing 747 caused the explosion that
> destroyed TWA Flight 800 in July 1996, Boeing is still trying to prove
> that the plane was brought down by a missile or a bomb. Just two weeks
> ago, Newsweek has learned, Boeing experts demanded to inspect a piece of
> the wreckage from the fuel tank of Flight 800, hoping to show that the
> metal bent inward — suggesting a missile strike — before the explosion.
> The tests showed no trace of a missile hit. A Boeing official blamed the
> tests on the company’s insurance lawyers, and Lori Gunter, a Boeing
> spokeswoman, insisted that “to imply in any way that we go into these
> investigations with an eye towards litigation, that’s just not true.”
> A small agency with a tiny ($57 million a year) budget, the NTSB
> is “stretched to the breaking point,” according to a study that will be
> released this week by RAND, a private think tank that studies the
> government. Rather than rely so much on the very companies that it is
> investigating for help in weighing the evidence, RAND suggested that the
> NTSB reach out more to bigger government agencies, like the Defense
> Department and NASA, as well as to private universities. When it comes
> to actually ordering improvements in air safety, that falls to the
> Federal Aviation Administration, an institution that has only recently
> begun to shed its image as a pawn of the airline industry.
> While increasingly unpleasant, air travel is still safe. The
> question is, how safe is safe enough? Air crashes always produce cries
> of alarm and demands for new rules and safety equipment. Then the
> hysteria dies down — and usually only half measures result.
> The experience of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety
> and Security is illustrative. Set up after investigators suspected that
> TWA 800 was brought down off the coast of New York’s Long Island by a
> terrorist bomb, the so-called Gore Commission had high-powered members,
> including the heads of the CIA and FBI. But, lobbied heavily by the
> industry, it shied away from security measures that would cause delay or
> great expense. <Picture>•WNBC New York coverage
> European countries require that all bags be matched to passengers, but
> the Gore Commission ignored an initial staff recommendation for “full
> bag match.” The commission did push for $160 million to buy the latest
> explosive-detection devices at airports, but airline-security officials
> say the machines are underused because the airlines protest at the
> delays the machines can cause at rush periods.
> Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert who served on the commission,
> got fed up with the cost arguments put forward by the airlines. At a
> commission meeting, he jokingly made a modest proposal: “Let’s run a
> market test and allow an airline to have no security and pass on the
> savings to consumers.” Few in the room were amused by his barb at the
> airlines’ fixation with costs. Airlines are struggling to make profits
> in an intensely competitive marketplace. Security experts say that the
> attitude toward domestic terrorism is still “It won’t happen here.” But
> it will, and so will the kind of inexplicable tragedy that doomed Flight
> 990.
>
> With Evan Thomas, Gregory Vistica, Donatella Lorch and Michael
> Isikoff in Washington, Ana Figueroa in Los Angeles, Tom Morganthau in
> New York and Elizabeth Bryant and Gameela Ismail in Cairo
>
> © Newsweek 1999
Mike Schneider, VRWC Sentinel Outpost. "Autoguns, on-line!" +--+--+--+
Reply to mike1@@@winternet.com sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.
"My favorite president is Washington, because he's been dead the longest."
-- Rob Robertson
FAILURE OF THE PUBLIC TRUST: http://www.swlink.com/~hoboh/
Mike Schneider '
http://sightings.com/politics5/missles.htm
Were EgyptAir 990
Pilots Heroically Trying
To Dodge Missiles?
Technical Intelligence and EgyptAir Flt 990 By Jhan Davis
<Jhan...@aol.com>
11-20-99
Dear Editor -
A simple analysis of the flight profile of EgyptAir Flight 990 elicits
more details than would appear on the surface.
The man in the co-pilot's seat at nose-down, said to be Gameel
El-Batouty, was a seasoned veteran with many hours of flight experience.
Solving the mystery of the lost aircraft, crew and passengers then turns
upon Mr. Batouty and his perceptions, and only on those perceptions. It
doesn't matter what was outside the aircraft. All that matters is this
man's perceptions, as he was processing the input datastream from his
position within the aircraft.
No one in his right mind would fly a passenger plane according to the
profile followed by Mr. El-Batouty. Unless he perceived a threat to his
aircraft and passengers of sufficient import to warrant doing so.
No sane person would turn off both engines, and then proceed to fly the
plane according to such a profile. Unless turning off the engines was
deemed the least of two very, very, bad choices.
Let's recap.
Flight 990 was proceeding on-profile at flight level 330. The man in the
captain's seat left the cockpit. The man in the co-pilot's seat left the
cockpit. The man with the most flying experience was then left in charge
of the plane. Interesting.
A bit later, Mr. Batouty disengages the autopilot, places the aircraft
into a dive and then turns off both engines. Again, interesting. After a
precipitous descent to flt lvl 190, two individuals finally manage to
nose the aircraft up, and ascend to flt lvl 240. Again, very
interesting. But for some reason, it becomes necessary to again nose the
plane down, whereupon it ends up at flt lvl 000, at which point, if the
FDR data is the real un-spun FDR data from the aircraft, and can be
believed, the aircraft *first* loses its structural integrity.
What would cause a seasoned veteran flyer to maneuver his aircraft in
such a fashion? Let's assume for a moment that these maneuvers were the
result of a trained response to imminent threat. What would cause an
experienced flyer to perceive such a threat? For our purposes it really
doesn't matter. All that matters is that this experienced flyer
perceived a threat.
The threat led him, according to his training, to do two things you'd
never do with a large civilian airframe: point the nose hard down, and
turn off the engines. Why nose hard-down? For one thing, a Boeing
767-300 doesn't have the lateral maneuverability of an F-16. If an
evasive maneuver was required, there is only one direction which so
heavy an aircraft can take very quickly, and that's down. Which still
leaves us with "why turn the engines off?" Let's assume for an instant
that this seasoned flyer was actually engaged in an evasive maneuver.
Again, we don't know and we don't care for the moment what he was
fleeing from, or if he was actually fleeing from anything. But he did
nose the plane down and turn the engines off. And the only reason you'd
turn the engines off in a Boeing 767-300 is if you perceived a threat
which you believed would be greater leaving them on than turning them
off. So, Mr. Batouty turned them off as, again, the least of two very,
very bad choices available to him. Why?
Aircraft engines generate a lot of thrust. That's why we put those
powerplants on the structures we call aircraft. But they also generate a
great deal of something else along with the thrust and that's heat. Mr.
Batouty obviously understood this, and turned the engines off to
minimize the amount of radiated heat. Again, whether the threat was real
or perceived makes no difference. Mr. Batouty followed a profile which
makes sense only if you're trying to get away from something that's
after you, that's looking for your thermal signature.
So the ultimate solution to the "mystery" of the loss of Flt 990 is no
mystery at all. A seasoned pilot perceived a threat, pointed his
aircraft down and turned off those two big engines. When you turn off
those engines and point them straight down, that -65F air at flt lvl 330
cools them quickly. The object is to kill your aircraft's thermal
signature before the missile kills you and sets your 990=007. At some
point in time, he thought the threat was over. He, with help recovered
the aircraft from the first dive, taking it from flt lvl 190 to flt lvl
240. To get the aircraft nose up and 5,000 feet higher required an
engine restart.
He must have perceived the threat again, because he repeated the
maneuver, once again pointing his aircraft at the only object a missile
can't recover from if its following you and you're dropping below its
sensor threshold. The aircraft could potentially recover from another
dive if the pilot leveled it off just above the deck. A missile headed
toward the water isn't going to recover from getting wet and come back
out of the drink after you. And those engines were cold when the
aircraft hit the deck or there would have been a burning oil slick
instead of a seawater-cold slick.
Mr. Batouty's response followed perfectly the profile of an individual
who, in response to a perceived missile threat, wished to preserve the
personnel and equipment in his trust. Any pilot, perceiving the threat
as Mr. Batouty did, would have followed exactly the same flight profile,
even if it made for a zero-g situation. Better a messy cabin and some
injured passengers than having your aircraft blown out of the sky.
We may never know the exact nature of the threat which Mr. Batouty
perceived. But since those big planes don't have rear-view mirrors, it
makes sense that some individuals left the cockpit for a time just
before the nose-down. Were they looking out the windows on either side
of the aircraft's passenger space trying to find whatever they thought
posed a threat? We do know that sensitivity to other aircraft in your
vicinity, especially those flying really close to you at night, has
increased since the KAL 007 shootdown. Were the other individuals trying
to identify the threat? Was Mr. Batouty gently rotating the aircraft
back and forth about its yaw axis so the folks in back could have a
better chance of seeing whatever may have been interpreted as "the threat?"
We'll never learn from the victims what transpired, or whether the
threat was real. They took that knowledge into the depths with them. But
we do owe it to the Egyptians to share the results of any radar data and
supporting technical intelligence showing an object in the vicinity of
that aircraft. The Egyptians aren't buying the fabricated suicide story
and they won't buy anything less than an explanation which actually
explains what happened. Right now, this is the only explanation on the
street that's doing any explaining.
- Jhan Davis
Eugene Griessel
<snip steaming pile of fresh horse ordure>
>We'll never learn from the victims what transpired, or whether the
>threat was real. They took that knowledge into the depths with them. But
>we do owe it to the Egyptians to share the results of any radar data and
>supporting technical intelligence showing an object in the vicinity of
>that aircraft. The Egyptians aren't buying the fabricated suicide story
>and they won't buy anything less than an explanation which actually
>explains what happened. Right now, this is the only explanation on the
>street that's doing any explaining.
>
>- Jhan Davis
Jhan Davis is unaware if Jhan Davis' arsehole is drilled, punched or
reamed out. Thus Jhan Davis is constipated. Logic as good as any
Jhan Davis exhibits in the above load of twaddle.
Don't you just love the "Noddy studies Flying Machines" style of
writing?
Eugene L Griessel eug...@dynagen.co.za
www.dynagen.co.za/eugene
SAAF Crashboat Page - www.dynagen.co.za/eugene/eug3.htm
Thought for the day .......
Civilization: Stone age => Bronze age => Iron age => Garbage.
M & J
Just ask Flip Wilson.
Makes as much sense as this theory.
Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:
>
>A simple analysis of the flight profile of EgyptAir Flight 990 elicits
>more details than would appear on the surface.
Bwaaaaaawhawhahwahwhawhahwahw!
>
>The man in the co-pilot's seat at nose-down, said to be Gameel
>El-Batouty, was a seasoned veteran with many hours of flight experience.
>Solving the mystery of the lost aircraft, crew and passengers then turns
>upon Mr. Batouty and his perceptions, and only on those perceptions. It
>doesn't matter what was outside the aircraft. All that matters is this
>man's perceptions, as he was processing the input datastream from his
>position within the aircraft.
>
>No one in his right mind would fly a passenger plane according to the
>profile followed by Mr. El-Batouty. Unless he perceived a threat to his
>aircraft and passengers of sufficient import to warrant doing so.
>
>No sane person would turn off both engines, and then proceed to fly the
>plane according to such a profile. Unless turning off the engines was
>deemed the least of two very, very, bad choices.
God you're an idiot.
--
Bertie the Bunyip
AAS 001 AAS founder
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The path to wisdom is littered with beer bottles.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Mike Schneider '
> wh...@grow.com (Mike Schneider ') wrote:
>
> <snip steaming pile of fresh horse ordure>
>
> >We'll never learn from the victims what transpired, or whether the
> >threat was real. They took that knowledge into the depths with them. But
> >we do owe it to the Egyptians to share the results of any radar data and
> >supporting technical intelligence showing an object in the vicinity of
> >that aircraft. The Egyptians aren't buying the fabricated suicide story
> >and they won't buy anything less than an explanation which actually
> >explains what happened. Right now, this is the only explanation on the
> >street that's doing any explaining.
> >
> >- Jhan Davis
>
> Jhan Davis is unaware if Jhan Davis' arsehole is drilled, punched or
> reamed out. Thus Jhan Davis is constipated. Logic as good as any
> Jhan Davis exhibits in the above load of twaddle.
An arch-typical example of pro-government weasel mentality.
> Don't you just love the "Noddy studies Flying Machines" style of
> writing?
>
> Eugene L Griessel eug...@dynagen.co.za
>
> www.dynagen.co.za/eugene
> SAAF Crashboat Page - www.dynagen.co.za/eugene/eug3.htm
>
> Thought for the day .......
>
> Civilization: Stone age => Bronze age => Iron age => Garbage.
Eugene Griessel
>>
>> Jhan Davis is unaware if Jhan Davis' arsehole is drilled, punched or
>> reamed out. Thus Jhan Davis is constipated. Logic as good as any
>> Jhan Davis exhibits in the above load of twaddle.
>
>
> An arch-typical example of pro-government weasel mentality.
Ok, Mike, which government do you think I am "pro" for?
I'll tell you where I am certainly "pro" - pro-verifiable facts,
pro-logic, pro-full investigation. I certainly do not imbue every
anti-goverment journalist with some sort of inviolable veracity, as
you do.
And the howling load of complete factual errors made in the reportage
you so kindly regaled us with does not bode well at all for the
veracity - or indeed impartiality - of your reporter.
Mike Schneider '
> wh...@grow.com (Mike Schneider ') wrote:
>
> >>
> >> Jhan Davis is unaware if Jhan Davis' arsehole is drilled, punched or
> >> reamed out. Thus Jhan Davis is constipated. Logic as good as any
> >> Jhan Davis exhibits in the above load of twaddle.
> >
> >
> > An arch-typical example of pro-government weasel mentality.
>
> Ok, Mike, which government do you think I am "pro" for?
>
> I'll tell you where I am certainly "pro" - pro-verifiable facts,
> pro-logic, pro-full investigation.
Except that you don't do that when the government is distributing the
"facts".
And, define "full investigation" for us.
Mark
Such as and why?
ppgo...@rocketmail.com
wh...@grow.com (Mike Schneider ') wrote:
> And, define "full investigation" for us.
One in which there is sufficient evidence upon which
to base reasonable conclusions. TWA 800 is a good
example. There is enough of the airplane available
to ascertain the reason for the accident, and in this
case perhaps more importantly, to ascertain what was
not the reason for the accident. That is the
envelope within which NTSB operates, and they
operate within this envelope very competantly.
A large percentage of big-airplane accidents leave
behind trails of controversy. TWA 800 is not
exceptional, it just happens to be an interesting case in
the age of Usenet and conspiro-hype. If you look
at the L-1011 that went in at Dallas, you'll see
an accident in which serious students of aviation
safety sciences can disagree about the most profound
causes. Should the crew have continued the approach
into the weather conditions that they saw? That
sort of thing.
It is not NTSB's job to be ultimate mystery-solver or
ultimate judge and jury. It is their job to do the
best possible work of gathering evidence and analyzing
it in the most effective way. Everything you see
"out here" is just churn. From a safety point of
view, the TWA 800 case was not particularly difficult
once you got past the expensive problem of getting
the wreckage and reconstructing it. The safety
implications are rather clear. Don't operate airplanes
like this for 25 years and assume that safety measures
put in place 25 years ago are still providing safety.
A clear, unmistakable wake-up call. Whether the industry
properly heeds the warning remains to be seen. I
have my doubts. When I see a.d.a regulars telling me
that a certain number of accidents is acceptable,
then I really have my doubts. If I am a safety
advocate, there is no acceptable number of accidents.
I think that the "casino" approach to safety is
irresponsible and self-defeating.
But, to return to your point, such as it was,
your attempt to characterize NTSB as some sort of
suspicious operation because it is "government"
is ill-founded and counterproductive, IMO.
Who will investigate these accidents? Newsmax?
Drudge? No thanks, I will stick with the
imperfections of government before I give the
job to a bunch of foaming-mouth nincompoops.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
ppgo...@rocketmail.com
Eugene Griessel
>In article <383aa010...@news1.mweb.co.za>, eug...@dynagen.co.za wrote:
>
>> wh...@grow.com (Mike Schneider ') wrote:
>>
>> >>
>> >> Jhan Davis is unaware if Jhan Davis' arsehole is drilled, punched or
>> >> reamed out. Thus Jhan Davis is constipated. Logic as good as any
>> >> Jhan Davis exhibits in the above load of twaddle.
>> >
>> >
>> > An arch-typical example of pro-government weasel mentality.
>>
>> Ok, Mike, which government do you think I am "pro" for?
>>
>> I'll tell you where I am certainly "pro" - pro-verifiable facts,
>> pro-logic, pro-full investigation.
>
>
> Except that you don't do that when the government is distributing the
>"facts".
I am still waiting for you to tell me which government I am "pro" for.
(Hint: certainly not that of the USA. Or indeed any on the continents
of North or South America.)
Eugene Griessel
>> ... the howling load of complete factual errors made in the reportage...
>
>Such as and why?
If it needs explanation its pointless trying. Because it reveals that
the questioner has no knowledge of either aerodynamics or missiles.
Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:
<snip a load of horseshit>
Yes, I'll bet you are trying to dodge a lot of things. Have those
black fingers been coming out of the linoleum floor trying to grab
you?
I hate it when that happens, don't you?
CJS
Mike Schneider ' wrote:
> Aircraft engines generate a lot of thrust. That's why we put those
> powerplants on the structures we call aircraft. But they also generate a
> great deal of something else along with the thrust and that's heat. Mr.
> Batouty obviously understood this, and turned the engines off to
> minimize the amount of radiated heat. Again, whether the threat was real
> or perceived makes no difference. Mr. Batouty followed a profile which
> makes sense only if you're trying to get away from something that's
> after you, that's looking for your thermal signature.
Bwahahahahahhahahahahha!!!!
The last time I saw a plot this bad, Charlton Heston was involved. Think how
long it takes your car engine to cool down. Do you *really* think turning off
the engines would do anything?
...Craig
(who keeps hearing that "If I Only Had a Brain" song from the Wizard of Oz
every time Mike posts something)
---
I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.
- Calvin (and Hobbes)
All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power.
- Ashleigh Brilliant
I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
- Fred Allen
CJS
Eugene Griessel wrote:
> "Mark" <draf...@deltastar.com> wrote:
>
> >> ... the howling load of complete factual errors made in the reportage...
> >
> >Such as and why?
>
> If it needs explanation its pointless trying. Because it reveals that
> the questioner has no knowledge of either aerodynamics or missiles.
Or heat transfer.
Cheers...Craig
Scott M. Kozel
>
> On Tue, 23 Nov 1999 07:13:17 -0600, wh...@blow.com (M*k& S+h*e.der ') wrote:
>
> > An arch-typical example of pro-government weasel mentality.
>
>
> a URL or e-mail addy signify?
South Africa?
--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington D.C. http://www.richmond.infi.net/~kozelsm
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Campus/5961/pennways.html
KRC
> An arch-typical example of pro-government weasel mentality.
Hey, Mikey, got a question for you - what does the ".za" at the end
a URL or e-mail addy signify?
.
KRC
Griessel) wrote:
--cut--
>I am still waiting for you to tell me which government I am "pro" for.
>(Hint: certainly not that of the USA. Or indeed any on the continents
>of North or South America.)
guys like Gord and Paul Adam were really U.S. Government opratives in
foreign countries?
KRC
.
KRC
wrote:
--cut--
>The last time I saw a plot this bad, Charlton Heston was involved. Think how
>long it takes your car engine to cool down. Do you *really* think turning off
>the engines would do anything?
travesties - that they shut down the engines to avoid the heat-seeking
missiles? Now we know the real source of Mikey's "facts" - Reagan-era
jingoistic military movies!
KRC
.
Mike Schneider '
> wh...@grow.com (Mike Schneider ') wrote:
>
> >In article <383aa010...@news1.mweb.co.za>, eug...@dynagen.co.za wrote:
> >
> >> wh...@grow.com (Mike Schneider ') wrote:
> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> Jhan Davis is unaware if Jhan Davis' arsehole is drilled, punched or
> >> >> reamed out. Thus Jhan Davis is constipated. Logic as good as any
> >> >> Jhan Davis exhibits in the above load of twaddle.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > An arch-typical example of pro-government weasel mentality.
> >>
> >> Ok, Mike, which government do you think I am "pro" for?
> >>
> >> I'll tell you where I am certainly "pro" - pro-verifiable facts,
> >> pro-logic, pro-full investigation.
> >
> >
> > Except that you don't do that when the government is distributing the
> >"facts".
>
> I am still waiting for you to tell me which government I am "pro" for.
> (Hint: certainly not that of the USA. Or indeed any on the continents
> of North or South America.)
Cite a single post in which you've criticized the US government for its
cover-ups concerning: Vince Foster, JFK assassination, Ron Brown death,
TWA-800, or Waco.
Mike Schneider '
> On Tue, 23 Nov 1999 15:53:46 GMT, eug...@dynagen.co.za (Eugene
>
> Griessel) wrote:
>
>
>
> --cut--
>
>
>
> >I am still waiting for you to tell me which government I am "pro" for.
>
> >(Hint: certainly not that of the USA. Or indeed any on the continents
>
> >of North or South America.)
>
>
>
> Sure you are - remember that loon a month or two ago that claimed
>
> guys like Gord and Paul Adam were really U.S. Government opratives in
>
> foreign countries?
Remember when people knew how to turn off the check-box for "add
carraige return at end of lines" in their newsreaders?
pgooding
Mike Schneider ' wrote in message ...
> Cite a single post in which you've criticized the US government for its
>cover-ups concerning: Vince Foster, JFK assassination, Ron Brown death,
>TWA-800, or Waco.
Cite any reason why any of these speculations are appropriate
for alt.disasters.aviation.
Eugene Griessel
> Cite a single post in which you've criticized the US government for its
>cover-ups concerning: Vince Foster, JFK assassination, Ron Brown death,
>TWA-800, or Waco.
Cite a single verifiable stand-up-to-scrutiny piece of evidence
pointing to any and I will criticise it. And I do not mean the
lunatic ravings of a pressman with a chip on his/her shoulder.
And before you foam off again - a cover-up or a conspiracy is defined
by any decent linguist as a "concerted and deliberately planned
attempt to conceal evidence for criminal gain".
Paul Siller
>In article <383ab836...@news1.mweb.co.za>, eug...@dynagen.co.za wrote:
>> wh...@grow.com (Mike Schneider ') wrote:
>> >In article <383aa010...@news1.mweb.co.za>, eug...@dynagen.co.za wrote:
>> >> wh...@grow.com (Mike Schneider ') wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > An arch-typical example of pro-government weasel mentality.
>> >>
>> >> Ok, Mike, which government do you think I am "pro" for?
>> >>
>> >> I'll tell you where I am certainly "pro" - pro-verifiable facts,
>> >> pro-logic, pro-full investigation.
>> >
>> > Except that you don't do that when the government is distributing the
>> >"facts".
>>
>> I am still waiting for you to tell me which government I am "pro" for.
>> (Hint: certainly not that of the USA. Or indeed any on the continents
>> of North or South America.)
>
> Cite a single post in which you've criticized the US government for its
>cover-ups concerning: Vince Foster, JFK assassination, Ron Brown death,
>TWA-800, or Waco.
Why would eugene criticize a foriegn government?
and if you don't think there's a coverup on TWA800, why would you
criticize the government for a coverup?
(since I'm posting from alt.disasters.aviation it's the only
relevant issue to our newsgroup)
Is america a place where if people don't agree with you ... you
are supposed to call them names?
Paul Siller sill...@calcna.ab.ca
(Please remember to remove the "TA" from return address)
X-no-archive: yes
WARNING: automatic sig line generator at work:
---------------------------------------------
Tonight you're a star, and I'm the big dipper.
Eugene Griessel
> Cite a single post in which you've criticized the US government for its
>cover-ups concerning: Vince Foster, JFK assassination, Ron Brown death,
>TWA-800, or Waco.
Ah! Your logic is up to scratch as usual, Mike. "If you ain't agin
'em you must be for 'em".
Let me put it to you succinctly:
I have no evidence supporting any of your claims. Not one single
piece indicative of a conspiracy by the US government.
What I do have is plenty of evidence of your total partiality, bias
and chip-on-the-shoulder willingness to believe, unquestioningly,
anything, no matter how far-fetched and unsupported by facts, that is
anti-government..
I like to think I have an open mind - give me evidence and I will
believe. You have a totally closed mind. You believe without
evidence.
pgooding
Paul Siller wrote in message <383b9769...@news.ucalgary.ca>...
>Is america a place where if people don't agree with you ... you
>are supposed to call them names?
Well, only if you don't have a gun.
KRC
wrote:
--cut--
> Remember when people knew how to turn off the check-box for "add
>carraige return at end of lines" in their newsreaders?
cancel-bot yet?
KRC
.
KRC
<koz...@richmond.infi.net> wrote:
--cut--
>South Africa?
Shhh...Don't tell him!
KRC
.
CJS
Mike Schneider ' wrote:
>
> In article <383ab836...@news1.mweb.co.za>, eug...@dynagen.co.za wrote:
>
> > wh...@grow.com (Mike Schneider ') wrote:
> >
> > >In article <383aa010...@news1.mweb.co.za>, eug...@dynagen.co.za wrote:
> > >
> > >> wh...@grow.com (Mike Schneider ') wrote:
> > >>
> > >> >>
> > >> >> Jhan Davis is unaware if Jhan Davis' arsehole is drilled, punched or
> > >> >> reamed out. Thus Jhan Davis is constipated. Logic as good as any
> > >> >> Jhan Davis exhibits in the above load of twaddle.
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> > An arch-typical example of pro-government weasel mentality.
> > >>
> > >> Ok, Mike, which government do you think I am "pro" for?
> > >>
> > >> I'll tell you where I am certainly "pro" - pro-verifiable facts,
> > >> pro-logic, pro-full investigation.
> > >
> > >
> > > Except that you don't do that when the government is distributing the
> > >"facts".
> >
> > I am still waiting for you to tell me which government I am "pro" for.
> > (Hint: certainly not that of the USA. Or indeed any on the continents
> > of North or South America.)
>
> Cite a single post in which you've criticized the US government for its
> cover-ups concerning: Vince Foster, JFK assassination, Ron Brown death,
> TWA-800, or Waco.
Cite a single post where Fidel Castro has criticized
the US government for its coverups concerning: Vince
Foster, JFK assassination, Ron Brown death, TWA-800, or
Waco.
Therefore, Castro is a government shill. QED.
CJS
It was one of the "Airport" movies (I think the one
with the Concord). The pilot (Heston, IIRC) realized
that a heat seeking missile had been fired at them. He
shut down the engines, opened the window (!?!), and
fired a flare gun.
Yow!
Cheers...Craig
KRC
On Wed, 24 Nov 1999 09:33:51 -0600, CJS <cshi...@grEymills.com>
wrote:
>It was one of the "Airport" movies (I think the one
>with the Concord). The pilot (Heston, IIRC) realized
>that a heat seeking missile had been fired at them. He
>shut down the engines, opened the window (!?!), and
>fired a flare gun.
Heston was only in one "Airport" movie - "Airport '75" - the one
where he climbs into the cockpit of a stricken 747 by being lowered on
a thether from a helicopter. In "Airport '79", which was the Concorde
one, George Kennedy's Joe Patroni character had been promoted from
maintenance guy to pilot. I don't recall the name of the other pilot,
but he was French.
KRC
Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:
>
> Remember when people knew how to turn off the check-box for "add
>carraige return at end of lines" in their newsreaders?
Yeah, those were the days.
Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:
>
>
> Cite a single post in which you've criticized the US government for its
>cover-ups concerning: Vince Foster, JFK assassination, Ron Brown death,
>TWA-800, or Waco.
Cite a single post where you weren't drooling.
Paul J. Adam
>, Mike Schneider ' <wh...@grow.com> writes
>Aircraft engines generate a lot of thrust. That's why we put those
>powerplants on the structures we call aircraft. But they also generate a
>great deal of something else along with the thrust and that's heat. Mr.
>Batouty obviously understood this, and turned the engines off to
>minimize the amount of radiated heat. Again, whether the threat was real
>or perceived makes no difference. Mr. Batouty followed a profile which
>makes sense only if you're trying to get away from something that's
>after you, that's looking for your thermal signature.
...Which is looking, less for the thermal plumes of your engines, than
the warm skin of your aircraft, heated by friction through the air.
>So the ultimate solution to the "mystery" of the loss of Flt 990 is no
>mystery at all. A seasoned pilot perceived a threat, pointed his
>aircraft down and turned off those two big engines. When you turn off
>those engines and point them straight down, that -65F air at flt lvl 330
>cools them quickly.
Within, oh, ten or fifteen minutes at least - there's a lot of hot metal
there. Meanwhile, the increased speed is raising your thermal
signature, as higher speed generates more skin friction.
All this time, of course, we have to account for the amazing slowness
of the supposed missile.
Another technical illiterate determined to create churn, I see...
>Mr. Batouty's response followed perfectly the profile of an individual
>who, in response to a perceived missile threat, wished to preserve the
>personnel and equipment in his trust.
Sadly, no, it didn't.
>Any pilot, perceiving the threat
>as Mr. Batouty did, would have followed exactly the same flight profile,
>even if it made for a zero-g situation.
Uh... no.
Don't you do _any_ technical vetting on the stuff you repost, Mike?
--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...
Paul J. Adam pa...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk