Rumors About Pilot Are "Flat Wrong"

The undocumented speculation has caused pain to the families and has not furthered aviation safety he told reporters.

Over the past week, the media has widely speculated that one of the pilots deliberately crashed flight 990 off the coast of Massachusetts and reported on statements that were said to have been recorded on the cockpit voice recorder.

James Hall did, however, say twice that the crash “might be the result of a deliberate act.” He said he had met with the director of the FBI on Monday and that the FBI investigation had “obviously received additional emphasis,” but that the investigation remained in the hands of both the FBI and the NTSB.

While the official transcript of the cockpit voice recorder has not been completely translated from Arabic, one pilot was reported to have said “I made my decision now. I put my faith in God’s hands,” before plunging into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Associated Press, however, reported today that a government official said the first sentence did not exist on the cockpit voice recorder and that rumors appeared to have resulted from confusion among investigators.

James Hall told reporters at a press conference that the rumors had “done a disservice to the long-standing friendship between the people of the United States of America and Egypt” and “caused pain for the families” of the victims.

Experts have been translating the tape and are now electronically enhancing it to prepare an exact transcript. Hall stressed the investigation was continuing, but had been hampered by the lack of wreckage recovered from the stormy Atlantic.

“Since the wreckage is on the bottom of the ocean,” he said, “the factual information has of necessity been literally reduced to radar data and flight safety records.”

The crash killed all 217 passengers and crew on board the Cairo-bound flight.