Jet 'exploded into pieces' (Witnesses "Saw Explosion On One Side of Plane Before Crash")

Eyewitnesses have spoken of their horror at seeing an Airbus A300 crash into a residential area of New York. Witnesses reported seeing a fire or explosion on one side of the aircraft as an engine fell off.

Milena Owens, who lives yards from the crash site, said she was putting up Thanksgiving decorations on her window when she saw the plane fly far too low.

"I heard the explosion and I looked out the window and saw the flames and the smoke and I just thought, 'Oh no, not again'."

"The whole house shook," said Gus Cholakis, who lives 100 yards from the spot where some of the wreckage came to rest.

"I looked out the window, the first thing I saw was a huge fireball right outside."

Mr Cholakis, 38, said he had known 13 of those lost when the World Trade Center collapsed.

He admitted he was praying he had not lost more friends, adding: "This neighbourhood has been through enough."

John Maroney, 47, said the engine plummeted onto a Texaco petrol station near his house, and pieces of plane were only a few hundred yards away.

"We were all out there with fire extinguishers and hoses, but we couldn't do much."

It was travelling to the left slightly and then it just nose dived straight down

Ethan Moses , "It was in a climbing position and when I looked up I saw fire on the left side of the engine," he told CNN.

The wing appeared to separate from the rest of the plane, which veered to the left and then plunged into a nose dive, he said.

"It was travelling to the left slightly and then it just nose dived straight down," Mr Moses said, adding that fire spread on the ground, moving from house to house within seconds.

"It was very, very loud. Because of what happened on 11 September, it gave me a chill," she told CNN.

"It was getting louder and louder and I looked out the window. I saw a piece of metal falling from the sky."

The wings were going backwards and forwards like it was trying to balance itself
Phyllis Paul

Beverly Browne, from Brooklyn, said she saw white smoke coming from the plane before it crashed.

"The wings were going backwards and forwards like it was trying to balance itself. There was white smoke coming out of it.

"It just couldn't seem to stabilise itself. The next thing I knew it had crashed."

? David Solero was driving over a bridge by Rockaway when he saw fire on the left hand side of the plane.

He told CNN: "We looked up and saw the fire coming from the left hand side - it could have been an explosion."

Other witnesses told reporters that the fire or explosion was on the right hand side of the plane.

I was scared it was going to veer towards us and hit us - we stopped dead in our tracks

David Solero, "It flew right over us, started to veer to the left then it veered back right.

"I was scared it was going to veer towards us and hit us - we stopped dead in our tracks.

She told CNN: "It was a huge, loud sound. It seemed so loud that I was like ducking almost.

Eyewitness
-- "It blew up into a huge fireball and I jumped out the second floor of my house." "It hit the house behind me and I think it exploded into pieces."

"We were just in shock and we had to evacuate two streets away. It was so horrible." "There is a lot of terror here. Everybody is in shock."

World Tuesday, November 13, 2001

Flight crashes in NY, hundreds feared dead, panic in city

Shobhan Saxena/IENS

New York, November 12: An American Airlines Airbus-300 with 255 people on board crashed in a residential neighborhood at 9:17 am just three minutes after after taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport here.

All passengers and crew on board are presumed dead. Many deaths were suspected on the ground in the area where the plane crashed after one of its engines reportedly exploded in the air.

AA Flight 587, on way to the Dominican Republic, crashed in the Rockaway section of the New York City borough of Queens. The FBI is investigating the reported explosion on board the plane. Many eyewitnesses saw one of the planes' engines falling off after an explosion and the aircraft going down.

According to officials in Washington DC, there were speculation about an explosion aboard the plane, which were later dismissed by the White House. The plane crashed in the Rockaways section of Queens that is and damaged homes. David Velez of the New York City Police Department told WABC-TV he had seen dozens of bodies on the streets near the crash site, although it was unclear whether they came from the plane or local houses. There were no body bags immediately on the scene, so residents brought sheets from their homes to cover the remains.

Local hospitals reported treating several injured, mostly for smoke inhalation.

Details about the crash were sketchy and coming in slowly. There is a lot of speculation about what made the plane crash just after it took off. Though there is no indication of terrorism at the moment, officials are not ruling out any possibility.

An United Airlines pilot who was flying close to the doomed AA flight told reporters that he heard the AA pilot saying that he had "a mechanical" just before the plane went down. Officials are interpreting it as a mechanical failure. There could have been a loss of control of the aircraft due to an internal explosion for mechanical reasons, or there could have been an explosion of an incendiary device inside the plane.

A pilot of another jet saw smoke coming off Flight 587's engine, sources say, as did a passenger on another plane.

As soon as the plane crashed, panic gripped the city as memories of September 11 attacks on the city came back to haunt people. All three New York-area airports -- Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark - were closed after the crash. All tunnels and bridges connecting the city with many islands around it were shut down, though government officials said they would re-open shortly.

Security was tightened around the United Nations buildings and F-15 fighters jets were in the air, moving in circles over the city. The Empire State Building was evacuated as well, as a security precaution.

US Air Force fighter jets have been patrolling the region since the September 11 hijacking attacks on New York and Washington, but Pentagon officials said they received no distress call this morning and heard about the Queens crash from civilian authorities only after it was too late to do anything. They said that the time a fighter jet could make it to the scene, the plane was already on the ground.

At United Nations headquarters, where hundreds of diplomats and world laedrs were gathered for the annual General Assembly debate, UN security chief Michael McCann went on the public address system to announce the crash. The complex was not evacuated, but all vehicles and pedestrians were banned from entering the grounds.

Flames were seen shooting from one- and two-story homes in the Queens neighborhood and the blackened fuselage lay visible on the street. Thick black smoke could be seen billowing above the crash site for miles. ,P> Fire crews were battling dozens of small structural fires on the ground as well as training several heavy water lines on the main body of fire. City emergency officials said it was an eight-alarm fire that could ultimately involve 400 firefighters and hundreds of police officers from the New York region.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani told WABC-TV that emergency crews faced two debris fields in Queens, one where the engine fell and one where the rest of the plane fell. The engine fell about four blocks from where the fuselage rests.

"What's your rebuttal to this?"

Well, it's difficult to know where to start.
I see multiple lies in the 1st couple paragraphs.

"Just after the initial explosion at 8:31.07.5 PM, the aircraft
pitched up abruptly and climbed several thousand feet"

This is not consistant with the "black box" info, the witnesses in the air, or aeronautical engineering facts.

"The initial explosion was not seen by any known witnesses"

Not true. Witnesses (some highly experienced) on the ground AND in the air
saw initial and secondary explosions. To say that HUNDREDS of people who saw a
streak go UP were actually seeing one go DOWN is ridiculous. Also, NOT ONE witness
that has claimed to see a DOWNWARD streak other than that of the aircraft falling.

They are straining really hard to show why EVERYBODY was wrong
about what was seen and what the hard evidence indicates.

The best rebuttal that I have seen is from the "black box".
Pressure indicators showed EXACTLY what would be expected from an explosion
JUST OUTSIDE the skin of the aircraft and EXACTLY what would be expected
from the damage from a missile. Not what you would get from an exploding fuel tank.
That and the fact that they CANNOT get a fuel tank to blow up as they claimed
was the case pretty much puts their strained explaination where it belongs.
This ignores a LOT of additional evidence. Further details can be found on multiple sites and threads...
Details that are far more consistant with the facts than what these people try to claim.

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