From today's "would you believe ..."
Doomed Flight Hit Turbulence Twice
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - American Airlines Flight 587 twice ran into turbulence left by a jumbo jet, including a blast of air that sent it careening sideways just seconds before it crashed, investigators said Thursday.
How long have jumbos been flying? How many planes have taken off after a jumbo? Now not one, but two "blasts of air" from a jumbo send a jet "carrening sideways." LOL
The jet's tail fin was somehow sheared off after it left Kennedy Airport early Monday. Its twin engines also fell off before the jetliner crashed into a Queens neighborhood, killing all 260 people aboard and five more on the ground
So the tail comes off (cause it was weak from turbulence in 1994, then this jumbo is in front), then as if that's not enough, the engines fall off, not one but both. Now, the engines are nowhere near the tail, they are on the wings, but they get shaken off the wings.
Investigators have focused on how the tail came off, looking at its composition and whether the wake of the Japan Air Lines jumbo jet affected Flight 587. The JAL 747 had left from the same runway less than two minutes earlier.
Guess nobody bought the bird theory.
Flight 587 began banking hard with its left wing down within eight seconds of the second wake encounter, said Tom Haueter, the NTSB's deputy director of aviation. The flight data recorder cut off at that point.
Yeah, those data recorders always shut off when you most need them. I'm sure Nixon would vouch for that, if he was still around.
"Obviously, the whole time we're talking about is the last eight seconds," he said. "We have eight seconds we're going to be looking at in extreme detail."
Yeah, let's just get everybody focused on those 8 seconds, and away from the maintenance activity, the coincidences, the tail falling off. I bet if we listen real close we can hear a bird chirping in those 8 seconds.
Earlier, NTSB investigator George Black Jr. had said the pilots of Flight 587 were probably unaware its tail fin had broken off.
"They don't have a rearview mirror," he told The Associated Press. "They have no idea they've lost a tail."
ha ha...
Black said investigators were almost certain the tail was the first part to break off the plane. While cautioning that investigators are not ready to rule out sabotage, he said the tail "doesn't appear to have been sabotaged in any way."
right, it just fell off... no sign of sabotage in any way.
Investigators have focused on what caused the tail assembly to shear off cleanly as the flight left for the Dominican Republic. Besides turbulence, they are looking at the makeup of the tail, which is made of composites, or carbon-fiber reinforced plastic that is incredibly strong.
Unlike their story...
Maintenance records indicate that before the plane was delivered to American Airlines in 1988, one of the six fittings that hold the tail to the fuselage had to be repaired by the manufacturer. The fitting's thickness was increased and it was reinforced with rivets.
So it was even stronger than the other A300s?
Enough of this... |
