EgyptAir 990:The Crash That Gave bin Laden the Idea for 9/11

Dom Bettinelli (0:00)

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You're listening to episode 434 of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World, where we look at mysteries from the twin perspectives of faith and reason. In this episode, we're talking about EgyptAir Flight 990 I'm Dom Bettinelli, and joining me today is Jimmy Akin. Hey, Jimmy. Howdy, Dom. Folks, be sure to stick around for the end of the episode. We'll have your feedback on our recent episode, number 423 on Mel's Hole. But first, today's episode is being released on September 11th. We've discussed the September 11th attacks before, but today we go back two years earlier to a quiet night over the Atlantic in 1999

An airliner bound for Cairo fell out of a clear sky with 217 people aboard. There was no distress call, no warning, and no obvious reason. Two national governments would study the same evidence, but they reached opposite conclusions about the incident, and years later a link to September 11th would surface. So what happened aboard EgyptAir Flight 90? Why can't two nations agree on what caused it? And what could a crash in 1999 have to do with the day we now remember every September? That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World.

Jimmy, we often begin by noting it when one of us has a personal connection to the mystery we'll be discussing. Do you have a connection to today's mystery?

Jimmy Akin (1:43)

Well, only a very slight one. I mean, I do remember this happening. It was in the fall of 1999, and I've watched coverage of it on the news. A plane had gone down off the coast of New England, and at first nobody had the faintest idea why.

The news broke in the middle of the night as a bulletin, and airliner bound for Cairo had vanished off Nantucket just before 2 a.m. East Coast time. And in those first hours, that was nearly all anybody could say. Here's how the news reported it early on.

SPEAKER_3 (2:15)

The Coast Guard is searching a 36-square-mile area despite diminishing hopes of finding survivors in the crash of an Egyptian jetliner.

SPEAKER_4 (2:24)

The Boeing 767 disappeared off the coast of Nantucket Island shortly after takeoff about 13 hours ago.

Jimmy Akin (2:31)

A plane was gone and the Coast Guard was searching the water, but everything else was still a blank. For those of us watching the next morning, there was nothing to do but wait. A plane full of people had vanished and TV news had no answers.

The network stayed on it, you know, circling back to the same few facts for hours because that's what TV news does and you got to fill airtime. So if you don't have anything new to say, just say the same old stuff over again, over and over and over again.

Dom Bettinelli (3:05)

Let's start by discussing the plane itself. What kind of plane are we talking about?

Jimmy Akin (3:11)

The Boeing 767 was and is a workhorse of long distance flights. By 1999, it had carried millions of passengers safely across oceans. EgyptAir's record was strong too. An aviation expert told CNN that night that he'd have happily flown that very same route. Interestingly, the jet also had a name the way ships do.

This jet was christened Tutmos III after the pharaoh who reigned in the 1400s BC during Egypt's 18th dynasty in the New Kingdom period. Tutmos was one of the greatest pharaohs in Egyptian history. He's often called Tutmos the Great. And he's also been referred to as the Napoleon of Egypt because of what a great warrior he was. Among his other accomplishments, he founded the ancient Egyptian Navy, which was the first known Navy in world history. Though that's not as much of an accomplishment as you might think because the Egyptians were terrible sailors. They were spoiled by the Nile River. It is easy-peasy to sail up and down the Nile.

It wasn't a complex task like crossing the Mediterranean Sea. So the Phoenicians, for example, were much better sailors. But you know, still, first Navy in world history, well, that's an accomplishment. And given all the other accomplishments that most of the third had, EgyptAir Flight 990 was trying to live up to quite a legacy.

Dom Bettinelli (4:38)

How good was EgyptAir's record?

Jimmy Akin (4:41)

It was a strong record, at least by the numbers an expert gave that night. Apart from acts of sabotage, the airline hadn't had a crash like this in decades. The expert also pointed out something useful about routes like this one, which is that airlines from the developing world actually hold their own in terms of safety.