EgyptAir Says Pilot Asks for Asylum

"...pilot, Hamdi Hanafi Taha, asked for asylum, saying "he has information on the EgyptAir crash."

Updated 8:06 PM ET February 4, 2000

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - An EgyptAir pilot who claims to have information about the crash of one of the airline's planes last year that killed everyone on board reportedly has asked for political asylum in Britain.

The official Middle East News Agency carried a statement Friday by EgyptAir quoting the airline's chairman, Mohammed Fahim Rayan, as saying that the pilot, Hamdi Hanafi Taha, had asked for asylum, saying "he has information on the EgyptAir crash."

But the report said that Taha "does not have any connection to or knowledge about the cause of the plane crash."

The Oct. 31 EgyptAir crash off the eastern coast of the United States killed all 217 people aboard. The plane went down in the ocean 40 minutes into an 11-hour flight from New York to Cairo.

A team of American and Egyptian investigators has yet to release any official findings on the cause of the crash. Some U.S. sources have said the U.S. National Transportation and Safety Board is working on the theory the plane was brought down deliberately by a copilot who died in the crash.

Egyptian officials have dismissed that possibility, saying instead that they believe an as-yet unexplained problem in the plane's tail section was responsible for the crash.

State-owned EgyptAir's brief statement did not elaborate on whether Taha claimed to have information about the copilot on the ill-fated jet.

Both the Egyptian government and public have condemned as outrageous and insulting any speculation that an Egyptian pilot may have committed suicide and killed innocent people in the downing of Flight 990.

If Taha has information contradicting that stand, he may fear being ostracized - or worse - in a country where human rights activists have been jailed for speech considered harmful to the national interest.

Taha flew a planeload of passengers to London earlier Friday and made his asylum request at Heathrow Airport.

In London, a spokesman for the Home Office, when asked if an EgyptAir pilot had requested asylum, said: "We can confirm an Egyptian national has sought entry into the U.K. and his application is being considered by the immigration services." The spokesman refused to elaborate.

The plane Taha had flown to London returned to Cairo as scheduled early Saturday piloted by reserve pilot Mohammed Salama. Upon arrival in Cairo, Salama told reporters only that the crew had seen Taha being escorted away by police in London.

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