Looks like two separate smoke plumes -- consistent with two sites, as Rudy said. I don't know how much smoke and flame an engine could cause -- could a lone engine cause that much smoke?
Looks like two separate smoke plumes -- consistent with two sites, as Rudy said. I don't know how much smoke and flame an engine could cause -- could a lone engine cause that much smoke?
Probably depends on what it hit on the ground.
Passenger Jet Crashes in Queens, NY
By DIEGO IBARGUEN
Associated Press Writer
November 12, 2001, 10:27 AM ESTNEW YORK -- An American Airlines jetliner en route from New York to Santo Domingo crashed moments after takeoff Monday into a residential neighborhood five miles from Kennedy Airport, authorities said.
The plane, an Airbus A300, had a capacity of 275 people. There was no report of the number of casualties, either on the plane or on the ground, where several buildings were reported to be ablaze.
Thick, black smoke could be seen miles away from the crash in the Rockaways section of the borough of Queens.
John Maroney, 47, who lives on 129th Street near the site of the crash, said an engine from the plane dropped on a gas station near his house. "The whole house jumped," he said.
"We were all out there with fire extinguishers and hoses but we couldn't do much," he said.
American Flight 587, a wide-bodied, twin-engine plane, crashed two minutes after it took off at 9:15 a.m.
Bill Schumann of the Federal Aviation Administration said there was no immediate indication of what caused the crash.
There was no immediate indication that terrorism was to blame, but the Office of Emergency Management said all bridges and tunnels in the city were closed except to emergency vehicles.
All metro area airports were closed following the crash near Beach 129th Street and Newport Avenue.
The mayor canceled his morning events and headed to the scene.
One eyewitness reported debris falling from sky, and told the Fox News Channel four homes were on fire.
Another told CNN he was 40 blocks away and saw "Just a lot of smoke. Tons and tons of smoke. You can see emergency vehicles heading to area. Lots of people are standing in the streets. It's very tense."
The crash came two months after the attack on the World Trade Center, which was destroyed by two Boeing 767s hijacked out of Boston's Logan Airport. One of the planes was operated by American, the other by United.
The airline told The Associated Press it had no immediate comment.
At the United Nations, where ministers from the 189 U.N. member states are gathered for the General Assembly, stunned diplomats stood in the corridors watching television screens as smoke rose from the crash site.
"Terrible," said U.N. Assistant Secretary of State Danilo Turk, shaking his head as he rushed into a meeting of foreign ministers from the United States, Russia and Afghanistan's six neighbors to discuss a post-Taliban government.
The crash site is a neighborhood of multi-family homes, three or four stories high, said Sanford Bernstein, general manager of a weekly Rockaways paper, The Wave.
Only a block or two from Jamaica Bay, the neighborhood includes a small shopping strip. A Roman Catholic church and elementary school are also nearby, he said. Schools were closed Monday for the Veterans Day holiday.
(PROFILE (CO:AMR Corporation; TS:AMR; IG:TRV;) )
Copyright © 2001, The Associated Press