-Caveat Lector- Flight 990 probe turns to jet's thrust reversers By John Schmeltzer and Michael J. Berens Tribune Staff Writers November 1, 1999 Years after operators of Boeing 767 aircraft were supposed to have modified the jets, an EgyptAir plane similar to the one involved in Sunday's fatal crash suffered accidental deployment of an engine thrust reverser during flight. The thrust reverser, a device meant to slow a plane after landing, is never supposed to be used in the air. After a Boeing 767 accident that killed 223 people in Thailand in 1991, the aircraft manufacturer and the Federal Aviation Administration notified all operators of the plane that the device should be modified. Yet in 1997, an EgyptAir 767 was damaged when a thrust reverser activated over Tanzania, according to records of a company that tracks insurance claims involving airlines. Investigators currently are trying to determine why EgyptAir Flight 990, also a Boeing 767, crashed off Nantucket Island, killing 217. Investigators emphasized they will not know what caused Sunday's crash for weeks or even months, and Boeing has declined to speculate on the cause. Jim Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters he did not know whether modifications to the thrust reversers had been completed on the EgyptAir airliner that crashed Sunday. "That is information we are gathering today and we will have that available tomorrow," said Hall. Search and rescue operations at the crash site off Nantucket Island switched on Monday to salvage efforts ahead of a storm that is forecast for the area. While locating and recovering pieces of debris and one human body, the Coast Guard said it also had picked up signals from one of the two "black box" flight-data recorders aboard the downed Boeing 767. Records from Airclaims Ltd., a London-based aviation consulting company that works with insurance companies to investigate aircraft accidents, show that on May 25, 1997, on a flight from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to Cairo, a thrust reverser accidentally deployed during a flight of a Boeing 767-200, damaging a wing and door. The flight, with 145 people on board, managed to land safely, the Airclaims report said. The 767-200 is a slightly smaller version of the Boeing 767-300ER that crashed Sunday into the Atlantic Ocean off Nantucket. Airclaims is a private firm that maintains a computerized data base of aviation incidents. The company's records indicate EgyptAir has filed 34 claims dating back to 1956. Each incident represents major damage or loss of a plane. In 25 such incidents, insurers declared the planes total losses. EgyptAir was not required to modify the thrust reversers because it is not a U.S. carrier and is therefore beyond the reach of directives from the FAA. The thrust reversers have come under renewed scrutiny because the EgyptAir 767-300ER that crashed Sunday was built alongside the 767-300ER that crashed in May 1991 in Thailand after the thrust reverser inadvertently deployed, killing everyone aboard. On Boeing jets the thrust reversers, along with the brakes, slow the jet after landing. A door on the engine pod slides open, simultaneously extending panels that redirect the air flow. In flight, the door is supposed to remain closed with the panels retracted and locked. Investigators of the fatal Thai crash said the accidental deployment of a thrust reverser flipped the plane, breaking off the aircraft's tail and sending the plane into an uncontrolled plunge into the jungle from 24,700 feet. According to Boeing, more than 2,000 Boeing 747, 757, 767 and 737 aircraft were built with the same type of thrust-reverser system as the one found in the Lauda Air 767 that crashed in Thailand. Both the ill-fated Lauda Air and EgyptAir planes came off the production line in Everett, Wash., within days of each other in September 1989, during one of the most turbulent employment periods in Boeing's history. Machinists struck the company only days after assembly of the two planes was completed. The workers complained they were under stress from working too much overtime, and could not do their jobs properly. One jet was delivered to Lauda Air, an Austrian carrier that began operating in 1979. The other was sent to state-owned EgyptAir. Boeing says all of its 767s were fixed so that the reverse thrusters would not operate in flight. "The fleet was 100 percent modified," said Gary Lesser, a spokesman for Boeing's 747, 767, and 777 production plant. Maged el-Masri, EgyptAir vice president for technical affairs, also said Monday that EgyptAir 767s did have the required modifications. The investigation of the Lauda Air crash concluded that the thrust-reverser malfunction during flight gave pilots only seconds to react before losing all control of the plane. Pilots could not maintain "controlled flight unless full wheel and full rudder were applied within 4 to 6 seconds after the thrust reverser deployed," according to the findings of the Lauda Air investigation. "Recovery was not possible if corrective action was delayed beyond 6 seconds." There were other similarities between the two crashes, though they were eight years apart. Like EgyptAir's cockpit crew, Lauda Air Capt. Thomas Welch, a Seattle native, and Austrian First Officer Josef Thurner issued no distress signals. The Lauda jet's cockpit voice recorder captured Thurner saying, "Ah, reverser's deployed," followed moments later by sounds of the jet breaking apart. In Sunday's crash, the twin-aisle 767 disappeared from radar 33 minutes after leaving New York's John F. Kennedy airport. The plane plunged from 33,000 feet to 19,100 feet in 36 seconds. There was no radio contact from the pilots after their last routine contact with air traffic controllers, said the NTSB's Hall. Radar similarly tracked the Lauda jet careening from 24,700 feet to about 8,000 feet--3.1 miles--in less than 30 seconds. >From sounds captured in the final hundredth of a second on the cockpit voice recorder, investigators deciphered the jet breaking up at speed and forces it was not designed to withstand. "The similarities certainly scream out between this crash and Lauda Air," said Terry Ford, a Santa Rosa, Calif.-based aviation consultant who helped investigate the Lauda Air crash for victims' families. Thai investigators in 1991 initially thought a terrorist bomb brought down the Lauda jet. In the weeks following the accident, speculation on the cause ranged from catastrophic engine failure to spontaneous combustion of a crate of lithium wristwatches in the cargo hold. Adding to the confusion was the fact that the airplane crashed in a remote jungle hillside 130 miles from Bangkok, and villagers looted the wreckage. However, a crucial piece of evidence emerged when the left engine was recovered with its thrust reverser in a fully deployed position. Reversers slow a jetliner by diverting engine thrust forward, and are designed to be used only on the ground as a supplement to the wheel brakes. Airline owner Niki Lauda, a seasoned pilot, experienced a reverser deployment in a Boeing 767 simulator after the Thailand crash. Lauda told reporters after the simulation that, upon deploying the left reverser, the simulator twisted and flipped completely over to its left in a couple of seconds. A few seconds more and it was careening, nose aimed down. "You're suddenly upside down in a dive," Lauda said. "There's nothing you can do. It turns over, then it goes nose down. You go right into overspeed, and then you lose all of your controls. The airplane broke up at exactly 17 seconds after it went out of control." Tribune correspondent Mike Dorning contributed to this report from Newport, R.I. Knight Ridder/Tribune news service also contributed. ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> *Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day. ================================================================= DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om