All 217 people aboard the EgyptAir flight to Cairo died when the Boeing 767 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, less than an hour after taking off from New York's Kennedy airport.

On Wednesday the head of the Egyptian Pilots' Association, Captain Walid Murad, rejected a report on CNN which said the pilot suicide theory had not been ruled out.

Captain Murad said: "The association reserves the right to take legal action against these allegations, which amount to defamation.

I put my faith in God's hands

Voice on Flight 990 black box

"These accusations are unacceptable and I don't know on what they are basing them."

US television network CNN on Tuesday quoted "two sources familiar with the investigation" as saying that a recently-completed transcription of the cockpit conversations did not alter the suicide theory.

The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said relief co-pilot Gamil al-Batouty was heard asking or offering to take the controls half-an-hour after Flight 990 left New York for Cairo, CNN said.

He was then heard saying "I put my faith in God's hands", which he uttered "multiple times" before a series of unexplained manoeuvres.

Engines turned off

The autopilot was turned off, the plane went into a dive, the elevators went in different directions and the engines were allegedly turned off, CNN said.

The sources emphasised that the voice recorder information was not conclusive by itself and acknowledged that there has been considerable debate about the meaning of the religious phrase, CNN said.

Gamil al-Batouty's words continue to be the focus of the investigation

The sources said the US National Transportation Safety Board thesis that the plane was deliberately crashed was based on analysis of the flight data recorder, which showed what was happening at the controls.

Egyptian officials have been reluctant to concede that one of their pilots may have brought down the plane deliberately.

There was much opposition to the American accident investigators handing over the inquiry to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) when foul play was first suspected.

FBI accepted

However, on Saturday the president of EgyptAir, Mohammed Fahim Rayan, told reporters: "EgyptAir has no objection to the investigation being transferred to the FBI."

Mr Rayan was speaking on his return to Cairo from the United States, where he had been taking part in a meeting of the executive committee of the International Air Transport Association.

However the EgyptAir president was not accepting the possibility that one of his pilots was responsible for the disaster.

He said in an interview published in the Al-Ahram weekly, that "serious damage" to the aircraft's tail section might have been the cause of the crash.

He said: "Serious damage to the tail unit caused, perhaps, by a collision with a solid body, would explain the rapid descent."