Gulf Air said yesterday that it rejected "for the moment" reports that pilot error was the probable cause of its airliner's crash off Bahrain, which killed all 143 people on board.
"For the moment, it is not the pilot error," which caused Wednesday's accident, chief pilot of Gulf Air's Airbus A-320 fleet, Capt Hameed Ali, told a press conference in Manama.
Capt Ali also contradicted earlier reports by Bahrain aviation authorities that the plane made two failed attempts to land before its fatal plunge into the sea. "The plane made only one attempt," he said, adding that the pilot requested permission to circle.
The pilot did not report any technical problems and spoke in a normal tone of voice just before the crash, Capt Ali said.
"The pilot commenced a go-around. . . and the plane disappeared from radar at one nautical mile from the airport," he said.
The Gulf Air captain called the press conference to respond to a CNN reports that had pinpointed pilot error in the disaster.
CNN had said controllers had told the pilot he was coming in "too fast and too high, almost double the proper altitude" and asked him to try again. But that landing was aborted as well after the pilot still flew in too quickly, said the report.
"The pilot accepted radar assistance for a third try, and began to climb to the 2,000 feet that the controllers had instructed. . . But the jet abruptly disappeared from their screens at about 1,000 feet," CNN said, citing unidentified "official sources". Earlier, the English-language Bahrain Tribune also said it had learned the pilot was using excessive speed.
Gulf Air also said it would send the flight data recorder from the Airbus to Europe or the US for analysis.
The bodies of 64 Egyptians who died in the crash will be taken back to their country on a special flight this morning.
An EgyptAir Airbus 300 heading to London was forced back to Cairo airport yesterday after a loss of pressure left the plane's 194 passengers struggling to breathe, airport officials and witnesses said.