The following statement was released this afternoon by National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall. The National Transportation Safety Board s investigation of the crash of Egyptair flight 990 is continuing on several fronts. The Cockpit Voice Recorder Group has completed a substantial portion of its work. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has observer status on the group. A working Arabic transcript of the recording is completed, as is a working English translation.
Further refinements are possible before the transcript is considered complete.
Under federal law, transcripts of pertinent portions of cockpit voice recordings are released at a Safety Board public hearing on the accident or, if no hearing is held, when a majority of the factual reports are made public. The timing of the CVR has been correlated with events on the Flight Data Recorder. While sound spectrum analysis work is continuing, no sounds have been detected that would be consistent with mechanical failures or an explosion. As I ve already stated, by law the transcript cannot be released by us until a certain stage in our investigation, and we have not yet reached that stage. After careful consideration, I do not believe this transcript can be characterized or further described without adding to the speculation or misleading the public about the contents of the recording.