MONITOR: EGYPTAIR MYSTERY

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Egypt and America respond to suggestions that the EgyptAir plane was deliberately crashed by its co-pilot

Egyptian Gazette

THE WIDELY hyped evidence is none other than a religious phrase uttered by one co-pilot on the doomed plane in which he said the shihada or a Muslim prayer uttered prior to death. This expression is glaringly misconstrued to imply a suicidal wish! It is downright absurd to expect anyone planning a suicidal act to utter the shihada. Islam strictly frowns upon suicide and condemns any perpetrator of the act as an infidel. These cultural sensitivities and differences should be carefully heeded before such gross misinterpretations are made and spread like wildfire. Certainly, we all wait with bated breath to know what went wrong with the EgyptAir airliner. Even though, neither rushing headlong to infer conclusions nor making senseless insinuations would convincingly unravel the mystery of the Flight 990 catastrophe.

News Sentinel

US

NOW THAT it appears the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 might have been caused when the co-pilot decided to kill himself, perhaps more people will take the issue of suicide more seriously. Bad news can have a way of focusing attention. Of course, most people who commit suicide do not so literally take others with them. But their deaths do not affect just themselves. They leave behind scarred and sometimes destroyed people who cannot cope with the feelings of guilt and shame the suicide heaps upon them. The true tragedy is that we will never know. Most suicides do not go into that good night noisily like a falling airplane, but quietly, distant ships slipping beneath troubled waters.

Al Ahram

Egypt

ARE WE to believe America would admit to having security loopholes in US airports, so that a bomb is planted in the luggage space inside the plane, or so that foreign intelligence have infiltrated the American security network? Are we to believe that the high mighty superpower would admit to a missile being released, if only by mistake, and to it having hit the plane, thus throwing the efficiency of American weapons and technology in doubt? Are we to believe that the highly advanced America would admit to failings in the structure of Boeing planes and thus to lose the international plane market which pumps billions upon billions of dollars into the veins of the American economy? The cover-up is obvious. We are even asked to believe that the crash was the result of a row among pilots in the cockpit, or of a suicide committed in order that the pilots' families would collect insurance.

New York Post

US

IT IS not unreasonable to suspect terrorist involvement in this crash. And, anyway, both the United States and Israel are being blamed for it on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt. So it is necessary that all leads be followed. Right now, the most promising is that the crash of Flight 990 was no accident. Whether it was the result of a deranged act, or a political crime, may never be known - but, again, the sooner the FBI is on the job the better.

Al Shaab

Egypt

AN INTERNATIONAL intervention in the course of the investigations conducted to the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 off US coasts is urged. All evidence gathered by the American authorities suggest foul play. We ask to know why have the two black boxes been tampered with by the CIA? Why have American authorities not involved the Egyptian government since the beginning of the investigations? Why has a media blackout been imposed? And why has faulty analysis been circulated in American Jewish-controlled media to rule out suspicion of foul play? (Amer Abdel Men'eim)

Boston Herald

US

MANY TECHNOLOGICAL mysteries have arisen in the near-century of powered flight. They are almost always cleared up. But it can take a long time. Even when the question of what happened can be answered, once in a rare while the investigators are stymied when it comes to why. The EgyptAir investigation has a long way to go. The co-pilot on whom attention is now focused could yet be exonerated by discovery of a technological breakdown. But this is less likely than it was the day before yesterday. Millions of travellers are reassured in the meantime and don't really care whether terrorists or the insane are statistically more to be feared than designers' mistakes.