 |  | Reuters | The EgyptAir jetliner at New York's Kennedy International airport, 1998.
| (CBS) The FBI will get control of the EgyptAir Flight 990 investigation sometime Tuesday, reports CBS News Transportation Correspondent Bob Orr.
NTSB Chairman Jim Hall discussed the handoff with FBI Director Louis Freeh, largely because new evidence may suggest that the crash was not an accident, but perhaps a purposeful act of one of the pilots.
Investigators have synchronized the cockpit voice recorder with the flight data recorder and determined that someone in the cockpit - apparently the co-pilot - made some type of religious statement that could be a prayer just before the auto pilot disengaged, a source close to the probe said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"A question has arisen who was in the co-pilot's chair," the source said, regarding whether it was the co-pilot who was at the controls when the plane took off from New York or somebody else.
Part of the challenge for investigators is that most of the cockpit conversations are in Arabic and there have been conflicting interpretations of what was said. One EgyptAir pilot familiar with the apparent prayer said it is used by "any Muslim facing death."
Some suspect the prayer may have been a prelude to a direct act; however, no investigator is quite ready to blame the pilots. EgyptAir officials say the prayer is not evidence of a criminal act. The airline says in a statement that if someone did recite a prayer, it was a "natural" reaction to an emergency situation.
Sources said that after the jet began to dive, the voice tape-recorded what sounds like the cockpit door opening, and a voice asking something to the effect of, "What's going on?"
It's not clear that both pilots were working to save the plane. Sources say a voice - believed to be that of the captain - can be heard urging his partner to, "Pull with me, pull with me."
Such a command would be expected from a pilot trying to pull out of steep dive. Apparently there was no response before the captain then said, "Cut the engines."
The flight data recorder shows that both engines were shut down just seconds before the jet lost electrical power, briefly climbed, and then crashed. Yusry Hamid, a veteran EgyptAir pilot who knew both of the pilots on the doomed aircraft, says there are a number of possible explanations for the actions of the pilots. For example, he says they may have shut down both engines if they needed to slow the plane after an explosion or other catastrophic event.
But with no signs of a technical problem, the investigation could be headed to the FBI. CBS News Consultant James Kallstrom, former deputy director of the FBI and lead investigator in the crash of TWA 800, cautioned officials who might take a more prominent role in the investigation.

Reuters and AP | Undated file photos of captain Ahmed el-Habashy, relief pilot Raouf Noureldin, and co-pilot Abdel Anwar |
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"The FBI ought to be careful," Kallstrom said, "and be sure of what they have before they sign onto it."
Underscoring the shift to a criminal investigation, security has been tightened at the crash investigation lab and even some of the NTSB's investigators have apparently been denied the kind of access that they expected.
The New York-to-Cairo jetliner crashed off Massachusetts' Nantucket Island on Oct. 31, killing all 217 people aboard.
Meanwhile, a Superior Court judge ruled Monday that the Rhode Island attorney general's office has the authority to issue death certificates to relatives of victims of the crash.
The certificates will say that each victim is presumed dead, even if their remains have not been found and identified. That should help families of the victims deal with legal matters such as settling estates.
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