ABCNEWS.com W A S H I N G T O N, Nov. 20, 1999

The suspicious words "I made my decision now" are not on the cockpit voice recorder of EgyptAir Flight 990 after all, a government official says.

On Wednesday, a federal law enforcement official said that just before the autopilot was turned off and the 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." But on Friday, a government official said the first of those sentences - the one about making a decision - is not on the tape, the Associated Press reported Saturday, quoting anonymous sources. It apparently arose from confusion among investigators, the official said.

The New York-to-Cairo jetliner crashed off Massachusetts' Nantucket Island, killing all 217 people aboard, including two pilots and two relief pilots.

Despite this, the head of the team investigating the Oct. 31 crash said that the crash still "might-and I emphasize might-be the result of a deliberate act."

The statement by James Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety board, is less than comforting to the family of Gameel El-Batouty, the co-pilot who was wrongly suspected of saying "I have made my decision" just before the plane began to dive.

Walid El-Batouty, the co-pilot's nephew, said: "We'd like to hear some leak saying `No, he is not the one.'"

Cause of Crash Still a Mystery

It was Hall who raised the possibility that EgyptAir 990 might have crashed due to a criminal act, when he told reporters Monday the safety board might yield leadership of the probe.