From http://www.ntsb.gov/Events/2001/AA587/tailcomp.htm
Posted on 08/27/2004 10:25:04 AM PDT by spyone
Stewart Bell National Post
A captured al-Qaeda operative has told Canadian intelligence investigators that a Montreal man who trained in Afghanistan alongside the 9/11 hijackers was responsible for the crash of an American Airlines flight in New York three years ago.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents were told during five days of interviews with the source that Abderraouf Jdey, a Canadian citizen also known as Farouk the Tunisian, had downed the plane with explosives on Nov. 12, 2001.
The source claimed Jdey had used his Canadian passport to board Flight 587 and "conducted a suicide mission" with a small bomb similar to the one used by convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid, a "Top Secret" Canadian government report says.
But officials said it was unlikely Jdey was actually involved in the crash, which killed 265 people and is considered accidental. The fact that al-Qaeda attributed the crash to Jdey, however, suggests they were expecting him to attack a plane.
"We have seen no evidence of anything other than an accident here," said Ted Lopatkiewicz, spokesman for the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. "There has been no evidence found, from what I can tell -- at least that's been relayed to us -- that there was any criminality involved here. It appears, at least the evidence we have, is that a vertical fin came off, not that there was any kind of event in the cabin."
Jdey, 39, came to Canada from Tunisia in 1991 and became a citizen in 1995. Shortly after getting his Canadian passport, he left for Afghanistan and trained with some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, according to the 9/11 commission in the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at canada.com ...
You have that right...
Did the Al Queda guy climb onto the fuselage after takeoff and delaminate the attachment lugs?
I would think this Al Queda story is an attempt to shift blame from airbus's weaknut vertical stabilizers.
Both engines were running fine when they went flying off the wing (engines aren't designed to stay attached when the plane is going BACKWARDS at 250 knots)
While the logistics of a possible explosive incident will remain the topic of debate for some time to come, I was simply pointing out the total lack of conviction in the duck and weave statements made by this spokesman for the NTSB.
In my view it does more to promote an attack theory than to dispell it.
i don't know about that flight, seems they had a good explanation,but no way will i ever think TWA 800 was downed and not an accident!! They never were able to duplicate the fuel explosion in the tank by itself,just theories,and too many eye witnesses!!!!
What a goofy and poorly written article.
I have no doubt that al Qaeda was involved, but this poorly written article will not help.
This is not an attack on you, but an observation of the writer of the article.
Saturday Nov. 2001; 11:39 a.m. EST
Flt. 587 Video Shows 'Puff of Smoke' in Sky
A second-by-second videotape of the final moments of doomed American Airlines Flight 587 shows a puff of smoke in the sky seconds after it crashed outside of New York's JFK Airport Monday, lending credence to eyewitnesses who say the jetliner exploded before slamming into a Rockaway, New York neighborhood.
Though Flt. 587 probers have not released the key videotape, shot from a Metropolitan Transportation Authority highway surveillance camera, reporters from New York's Daily News were allowed to view it Friday.
"The tape.... shows a white outline of the jetliner against a clear sky in fairly steep decline," the News reported in Saturday editions. "Seconds later, the outline disappears and the video shows a blurry, white, undefined patch as the plane apparently breaks apart."
Visible in one of the final frames of the sequential videotape, "a puff of white smoke in the sky."
The images of Flt. 587's final moments are said to be "very unclear." FBI and NTSB investigators hope to learn more through video enhancement techniques.
"We have seen NO EVIDENCE of anything other than an accident here..." Move along citizen !
Interesting site by someone who lived in Queens:
http://www.usread.com/
Thyey seems to have pretty reasoned thouths as to why it was not an accident.
This doesn't surprise me in the least and I'd like to see an investigation into this matter; I'm tired of the government covering stuff up to protect us.
The point being, vertical fins don't just "fall off" A300 jets, or they'd be falling out of the sky right and left.
Any cover to stop hysteria [or the government from appearing impotent]
Interesting...............
In my opinion.....the cells/network/connections.....are all linked also at various 'levels' (cultural/social/hospital/medical) penetration for communication/mule/'drop'.... links.
This would include Waco and Oklahoma and Memphis......D.C.,.... etc.
IMHO
Wow! Thanks . . .
As soon as Richard Reid was arrested I said on FR right away...this was what took this flight down.
Hey Namsman, could this hypothesis (from usread.com) provide a reasonable sequence where a bomb could have led to events which the caused then caused tail stabilizer to fail?
1. The pilot was not battling wake turbulence (although he may have thought he was) but the effects of an event inside the aircraft, which occurred at least 8 seconds before the tail separated.
2. The NTSB's Human Performance Group, operating under the assumption that the pilot was reacting to wake turbulence, stated that the turbulence was "barely perceptible", not typical, and entirely inconsistent with the very aggressive series of control inputs by the pilot. The pilot was using all the controls at his disposal (roll, yaw, and pitch controls) and called for maximum power three times in a span of only 7 seconds.
3. The vertical tail separation came later in the crash sequence than the NTSB has concluded, and was not the first object to depart the aircraft. Therefore, the vertical tail separation was a consequence, not a cause, of a crash sequence that was already underway and inevitable. This conclusion is supported by the radar data, the ECAM system, the tollbooth video, and the eyewitnesses––all which indicate that the tail, and engines, departed later in the crash sequence.
4. The initiating event was very likely an explosion or fire onboard the aircraft that occurred no later than the time of the 2nd alleged wake encounter––when the pilot began his aggressive control inputs. Dozens of eyewitnesses who saw the tail separate reported an explosion or fire which preceded tail separation.
Fascinating.
Also see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/778902/posts --it has some fascinating posts. Note in particular the opinions of "RandyRep", who states he is a recently retired aerodynamicist. His posts hold water, IMHO. There are also links to videos of the doomed flight (by a construction crew and by tool-booth cameras), the transcript of the cockpit crew's utterances, and the NTSB's animated reconstruction of the flight's final moments. I hope most of these links are still live.
The evidence is substantial that the design of the composite tail is fundamentally flawed... which was my own early suspicion, having some early career exposure to post-mortem of composite aerospace parts. The hesitation in release of NTSA conclusions might also relate to the sensitivity of calling the airworthiness of Airbus' design into question at this time of severe economic stress on the airline industry.
On the other hand--and more pertinent to today's disclosure--the "outies" visible in http://www.ntsb.gov/Events/2001/AA587/tailcomp.htm ("Center and aft attachment points (left side)" in particular) have yet to be explained to my satisfaction and have been fingered by some as evidence of an explosion in the cabin.
As a frequent flyer, it has proven impossible to avoid Airbuses. I remain uncomfortable on them and prefer Boeing, thankyouverymuch. I do not like the Airbus tail design which lacks an internal vertical spar to bear the side-loads and attach to the airframe. And, fundamentally, tails shouldn't fall off of planes.
OT, your tagline: Absolutely, Absolutely, Absolutely...
With the American Government frantically trying to halt the slide in US stocks and shares brought about by the events of September 11, the last thing it needed was a large Airbus A300-600 crashing into a New York suburb.
Unfortunately, shrill government lies combined with predictably hysterical media hype, fly in the face of hard physical evidence available on the day: crucial evidence which proves exactly how the Airbus initially lost control after the take-off roll from John F. Kennedy airport.
Within hours of the crash, the US Army lifted the entire vertical stabilizer of the doomed Airbus out of Jamaica Bay, at a location halfway between JFK and the primary crash scene at Rockaway Beach, shown on the photos and diagrams at the top of this page. For those not familiar with technical jargon, the vertical stabilizer is the big upright piece that sticks up at the back of the aircraft and carries the airline logo. The fact that the entire vertical stabilizer separated from the fuselage is news enough, because such an event is almost without precedence in modern aviation.
Aircraft have lost rudders in the past (the bit at the rear of the vertical stabilizer that moves left and right), and from time to time have lost a “piece” from the top of the vertical stabilizer due to an air strikes by a large bird, or a mid-air collision with another aircraft. But the entire vertical stabilizer? Never, so far as I know.
Put simply, any aircraft other than a highly-specialized “flying wing” that loses its vertical stabilizer is going to crash, because there is absolutely no way the pilot can control it. The vertical stabilizer is the only part of the aircraft which provides lateral stability, meaning the split-second it separates from the fuselage, the aircraft is free to fishtail to the left or right in a completely uncontrollable manner. For example. if you apply more power to the left engine than the right engine, the aircraft will attempt to make a flat turn to the right. If you try to lower the left or right wing, perhaps in an attempt to return to the airport, the aircraft will sideslip into a fatal dive. The only way out of the situation is by ejector seat, unfortunately not fitted to American Airlines Flight 587.
Claims of onlookers on the ground that “an engine came off” just before the aircraft crashed at Rockaway Beach, are entirely believable. By the time Flight 587 reached Rockaway it was completely out of control, subject to almost unbelievably high lateral sheer stresses (whiplash), because the vertical stabilizer was two miles behind the aircraft, back in Jamaica Bay. This whiplash effect with the aircraft in a steep uncontrolled dive, would certainly have been sufficient to shed one or both of the engine pods.
The wreckage at the primary crash site also confirms the cause of the crash. It was from here that investigators recovered both engines, and both black box recorders. The latter are positioned in the tail of the Airbus A300, meaning that the entire fuselage traveled as far as Rockaway Beach. The aircraft did not (as some media would have you believe) somehow “break in half” before it crashed.
More interesting than these indisputable facts, are the US Government’s actual reasons for denying the public the truth. After all, the NTSC and FAA knew all about the vertical stabilizer in Jamaica Bay at least an hour before I did, and promptly had it recovered by the US Army. Exactly where the Army took it thereafter is not yet clear, but pictures of this critical artifact are now very hard to find, and I am indebted to Steve Seymour for the one below.
What the picture shows very clearly, is that this is not a “piece” of the vertical stabilizer, but all of it, which you can confirm for yourselves by peering at the Airbus A300 thumbnails on the left and right. Flight 587’s stabilizer looks a lot skinnier than the ones on the thumbnails, but this is to be expected because, as previously stated, the moveable rudder at the rear of the stabilizer is missing. Nothing unusual about that, the rudder is relatively lightweight, and its pieces are probably scattered around widely in Jamaica Bay.
~~~November 14, 2001
http://www.geocities.com/mknemesis/airbus.html
Nope. November 12, 2001 was a Sunday (the day after my wedding, what a sight to wake up to since we had originally intended to marry on September 11).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/a300crash/story/0,11165,592701,00.html
Final passenger list. Jdey is not on it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.