He loves life. He is a happy father who had five children. Batouti was scheduled to retire from the airline early next year. An interview in Newsday with Batouti's family paints a very different picture of the relief pilot's state of mind from the one that's emerged in much of the American media. Family members showed the reporter two tires that the pilot had bought at Costco in New Jersey and brought home on a previous flight, and explained that he had called home the day before the crash to make sure his son would be at the airport to help him carry two more.
Suicide is strictly taboo in Muslim culture.
Overreaction has marked coverage of this story from the beginning. Much of the American media is running with the pilot suicide theory. Meanwhile, in Egypt, different types of conspiracy theories and angry suspicions are circulating about the crash. The Cairo Times reported Wednesday on conspiracy theories dominating the Egyptian press. The other is that the American military shot the plane down, either accidentally or deliberately to get rid of 33 Egyptian air force officers.