Egypt Air Flight 990 - Flight Details

Flight Details

Flight 990 was being flown in a Boeing 767-366ER aircraft with the registration SU-GAP, named Tuthmosis III after a pharaoh from the 18th Dynasty. The aircraft, a stretched extended-range version of the standard 767, was the 282nd 767 built. It was delivered to EgyptAir as a brand new aircraft on 26 September 1989.

Flight 990 was crewed by 14 people: 10 flight attendants and 4 flight crew members. Because of the scheduled flight time, the flight required two complete flight crews (each consisting of one captain and one first officer). EgyptAir designated one crew as the "active crew" and the other as the "cruise crew" (sometimes also referred to as the "relief crew"). While there was no formal procedure specifying when each crew flew the airplane, it was customary for the active crew to make the takeoff and fly the first four to five hours of the flight. The cruise crew then assumed control of the aircraft until about one to two hours prior to landing, at which point the active crew returned to the cockpit and assumed control of the airplane. EgyptAir designated the Captain of the active crew as the Pilot-in-Command or the Commander of the flight.

While the cruise crew was intended to take over far into the flight, the Relief First Officer entered the cockpit and recommended that he relieve the Command First Officer twenty minutes after takeoff. The Command First Officer initially protested, but eventually agreed.

The flight was carrying 203 passengers from seven countries (Canada, Egypt, Germany, Sudan, Syria, United States, and Zimbabwe). Of the total people on board, 100 were American, 89 were Egyptian, 22 were Canadian, and the others were of varying nationalities.

Of the passengers, four were non-revenue EgyptAir crew members. Of the passengers, 32 boarded in Los Angeles, while the rest boarded in New York. Many of the passengers were elderly Americans who intended to visit Egypt as tourists. Included in the passenger manifest were over 30 Egyptian military officers; among them were two Brigadiers-Generals, a Colonel, a Major, and four other air force officers. After the crash, newspapers in Cairo were prevented by censors from reporting the officers' presence on the flight.