Airplane Accidents Massachusetts

Linda Durden can't make candied yams. She's never tried, really, never needed to. Year in, year out, with a dash of vanilla or a smidgen of nutmeg, her mom would make them, and most of the rest of the Thanksgiving spread too. Today, her mother isn't around to cook. Yams were her father's favorite, but he's not around to eat them. Silly things like that, it seems, bring loss to life: Durden's parents were killed last month in the EgyptAir crash. She is not alone.

Muslim religious leaders and educators have been barraged with questions about Islamic teachings on suicide as the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 continues to be investigated. Since the plane went down near Nantucket Island on Oct. 31, news reporters as well as students of Islam and others curious about the faith have prompted on-the-spot instruction by religious experts in Los Angeles and across the country.

No matter what the investigation into the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 concludes, the inquiry and publicity surrounding the matter have already accentuated a deep cultural divide between the United States and the Arab and Islamic worlds. At times, it seems that the societies could not misunderstand each other more if they tried. For years, Muslims have complained that Americans are ignorant of Islam and quick to assume the worst about Muslims and their religion.

The suspicious words "I made my decision now" are not on the cockpit voice recorder of EgyptAir Flight 990 after all, a government official said. On Wednesday, a federal law enforcement official said that just before the autopilot was turned off and the Boeing 767's fatal dive began, the crew member in the co-pilot's seat was recorded as saying: "I made my decision now. I put my faith in God's hands."

In his strongest terms to date, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Friday that the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 "might be the result of a deliberate act," but he also lashed out at the media for "a virtual cyclone of speculation" about a possible suicide mission by one of the pilots.

Even as Egyptian experts arrived to help unravel the mystery of the EgyptAir Flight 990 crash, a top Justice Department official made clear Thursday that the United States will not be bound by Cairo's wishes in determining how best to move ahead with the investigation. "We are certainly going to be working with the Egyptians . . . , but I would not say anything is contingent upon the approval of the Egyptian government," said Deputy Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr.

Southern California Muslims on Wednesday decried suggestions that EgyptAir pilot Gamil Batouty could have taken the jetliner down in a suicide mission, saying they fuel inflammatory stereotypes of Islamic fanaticism. "The subtle tone that this is another fanatical Muslim who invoked a prayer and crashed a plane . . . is very unfair," said Maher Hathout, the Egyptian-born spokesman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles.

Gamil Batouty was affluent, affable and not deeply religious. Although a practicing Muslim, he was known to take a drink of alcohol occasionally, dance and "do what a man does." He pampered his children, and he especially cherished the daughter who came to him late in life. That was the portrait that emerged from children, relatives and neighbors Wednesday of the man who has been identified by U.S.

Aberrant pilot behavior is so rare that further psychological screening probably is not needed to prevent air disasters, several aviation safety experts agreed Wednesday. "I think the present system is adequate," said Gene Doub, a veteran air crash investigator with the Transportation Safety Institute in Oklahoma City. "It's a touchy area to regulate."

A pilot at the controls of the ill-fated EgyptAir Flight 990 apparently said, "I made my decision now," and expressed his devotion to God just before the autopilot on the transatlantic flight was disabled, law enforcement sources said Wednesday as new details emerged about the moments preceding the Oct. 31 crash. Seconds after that declaration, investigators say, the plane began its high-speed descent from 33,000 feet and another pilot entered the cockpit and asked what was happening.