[Peetwo]

Flight 804: Has ET struck again?

Oh no another AAI investigation falls under a potential cover-up cloud..

The Times via the Oz:

Egypt Air crash: cover-up fears as Egyptians go silent over cause

An EgyptAir plane on the tarmac at Cairo international airport. Picture: AFP.

• Dominic Kennedy
  
• The Times
  
• 9:47AM August 15, 2016
  

Investigators have come under fresh pressure to break their silence about the mysterious crash of an Airbus passenger jet in the Mediterranean as victims’ groups demanded an explanation over an alleged mechanical fault.

A lawyer for families of the victims of EgyptAir Flight 804, which plummeted into the sea killing all 66 occupants in May, said yesterday that it had experienced fire warnings before taking off from Paris to Cairo.

The automatic data system on the aircraft transmitted smoke alarms to the Egyptian maintenance base en route to Paris, but it was allowed to take off again for the night flight home, Sebastien Busy, representing 19 families, told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

The Egyptians have failed to respond to requests from the French transport police, who are assisting a judicial investigation into the deaths, to disclose maintenance records, amid suspicions that information was being withheld.

Flight 804 crashed in Egyptian air space in the early hours of May 19 with no mayday signal or distress calls from the flight deck.

The Egyptian civil aviation authority issued 25 bulletins in the first two months after the Airbus 320 crashed, but has said nothing for four weeks.

“The preliminary investigation has confirmed the existence on this aircraft of technical failures which preceded the May 19 Paris-Cairo flight and EgyptAir should have been aware,” Mr Busy, a lawyer with the French National Federation of Victims of Attacks and Collective Accidents, said.

Stephane Gicquel, the federation’s head, said: “This aircraft should never have taken off again from Roissy [Paris] without a repair.”

He criticised the lack of information from the Egyptians. “It’s a total blackout. The Egyptians undertook to keep the families informed before their official communiqués.

That has not been the case.” The stonewalling is fuelling fears among relatives that there may be a cover-up of the causes of the disaster. The dead included 30 Egyptians, 15 French people, two Iraqis and a Briton.

The limited information released so far is consistent with an electrical arcing fire in the avionics bay, a risk that may be associated with maintenance problems. No evidence has been disclosed that supports terrorism or a mechanical fault as causes.

French and US investigators, who are assisting the Egyptians by providing information and data about the aircraft and its parts, are said to be exasperated by the lack of transparency in Cairo. “The expression is ‘beating your head against the wall’,” a source said.

The French air crash investigation office and the National Transportation Safety Board of the United States, where the aircraft’s engines were made, have accredited representatives to the investigation.

France has finally lost patience and gone public with its annoyance. Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French foreign minister, took the unusual step of announcing that he had reminded his Egyptian counterpart that the families of the dead were still waiting for answers.

The findings are especially important for France because Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturing consortium, is based in Toulouse. The doomed aircraft was built in 2003.

Wagdy Gerges, whose brother-in-law Medhat Misheel was killed, said: “We haven’t received the bodies to bury them and we don’t have any updates about what is happening and what is going on.” Another relative told The Times that the last message families received from EgyptAir was on July 25.

The airline said then that Egypt’s technical investigation committee “has not at this stage indicated when an interim report will be issued”. Families said they had heard nothing directly from the investigation committee since providing blood samples months ago.

The relative said: “This is taking infinitely more time, it’s so much longer than we would expect. There is a lack of transparency. It’s as if they want us to forget this ever happened.”

EgyptAir, the state-owned national flag carrier, has previously been the focus of intense international scrutiny.

When Flight 990 from Los Angeles to Cairo crashed into the Atlantic off Nantucket in October 1999, killing all 217 people on board, the American authorities suggested that the co-pilot had deliberately crashed it. The Egyptians rubbished the US findings and blamed mechanical failure. In 2011, fire broke out on an EgyptAir aircraft preparing to take off from Cairo. Prompt evacuation saved the 317 occupants.

The Egyptians have repeatedly expressed annoyance at independent media reports about the investigation, at one point telling journalists to “abide by the official news”.

EgyptAir declined to comment, saying it was in the hands of the investigations committee. The Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority said it could not comment on the investigation.

Theories Explored

Hidden fire

Automated messages, known as Acars, sent by the aircraft just before the crash indicated an electrical power fault in the cockpit windows followed by smoke in a lavatory and in the avionics bay, situated below the flight deck. Experts say that these all suggest a fire inside the bay on the right side of the aircraft.

On the cockpit voice recorder, the word “fire” is heard. The flight recorder, situated at the back of the aircraft, stopped recording at 37,000ft, when the incident happened.
No fire in an avionics bay has previously been recorded on an Airbus A320, one of the world’s most popular aircraft.

However, the Royal Aeronautical Society in 2014 published a study Smoke, Fire and Fumes in Transport Aircraft, demanding wiring improvements.

Terrorism

France and Egypt are both key targets for Islamic State, but nobody has claimed responsibility for an attack. The final seven minutes of recorded actions by the aircraft do not support the likelihood of an explosion. Radars show that the aircraft lurched 90 degrees to the left, which is highly unusual.

However, it then settled into a more normal flight path. One possible explanation for the flight data recorder ceasing to record at 37,000ft would be if the plane broke up midair because of a blast.

Lithium battery fire

Lithium batteries in mobile phones, tablets and digital cameras are a potential fire hazard because they can burst into flames. The Royal Aeronautical Society says that on a typical flight, 100 passengers could have 500 lithium batteries. In 2010 a UPS Airlines flight caught fire because of a large quantity of lithium batteries in the hold.

Sabotage

There has been speculation about a photograph posted on social media by one of Flight 804’s cabin crew before the disaster. It showed an air hostess emerging from the sea, pulling a bag, with a crashed aircraft in the background.

The Times

It is more than passing strange that what appeared to be a totally transparent AAI (as per ICAO Annex 13) investigation being conducted by the Egyptians, has suddenly diverged into the realm of cover-up and subterfuge - could it be that ET has struck again? 


MTF...P2

"could it be that ET has struck again? " or; have they hired Beaker?  Yuk, yuk, yak.