Posted on 11/12/2001 9:06:00 AM PST by t-shirt
Jet 'exploded into pieces'
Monday, 12 November, 2001
BBC Residents watched as firefighters battled the blaze
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.
The plane then crashed into the Rockaway area of Queens.
I saw the flames and the smoke and I just thought, 'Oh no, not again'
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.
Resident's prayers
"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.
This neighbourhood has been through enough
Gus Cholakis
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.
"That's probably what shook us up from our beds. The whole house jumped.
'Climbing position'
"We were all out there with fire extinguishers and hoses, but we couldn't do much."
Ethan Moses said he had seen the plane climbing in the sky after take-off.
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.
Phyllis Paul said she heard the plane's engine drone louder as it descended.
Falling metal
"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."
Plane 'veered'
Other witnesses told reporters that the fire or explosion was on the right hand side of the plane.
Mr Solero added: "It could have been the engine was on fire.
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.
"We saw something fly off the plane."
One woman fled her home, fearing she could be killed.
Concorde-like sound
She told CNN: "It was a huge, loud sound. It seemed so loud that I was like ducking almost.
"I just heard - it sounded like Concorde flying too low and then it just hit.
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."
"I went over the deck in the front of my house because the back was so hot."
"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."
"I was very, very lucky."
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Sounds like an engine turbine failure I saw described on another thread.
From what I read, if a fin breaks loose in the turbine, it shatters other turbines in the jet engine, causing massive failure. The shrapnel flying around in the turbine will go through the wing, causing structural failure. That structural failure includes separation of the wing.
The Airbus 300 also has a rather shoddy safety record, and there have been other incidents of these types of accidents. If I can only find that post in that other thread with the links.....
14 posted on 11/12/01 10:18 AM Pacific by Junior Most of the eyewitnesses that were are saying they saw an explosion. Are you saying they are all wrong or yahoos?
You think you know more than them somehow???
I guess I just don't understand the question. Plus, of course, they had to grab somebody off the street who is traumatized and can barely talk and barrage that person with questions. And Zahn would fakely say, "I'm sure it's terrible, what you saw," and then hit her with the next odd question.
A crutch of many conspiracy theories is the foil hatter belief ALL eyewitness reports are 100% infallible and they only way a report can be wrong is if the witness is a liar or insane, thus when you question the eyewitness report you're questioning the credibility of the witness.
Also, eyewitness reports can be badly skewed if the eyewitness is not interviewed correctly (it's easy to subconsiously "lead" a witness into telling you what you want to hear) or if the eyewitness is "contaminated" by hearing other eyewitness reports.
I was just starting to get comfortable with the idea of air travel again, everyone saying "more safe than ever, now" but regardless of the reason for this crash, I'm wondering if I'll make it back to the east for the holidays. I've traversed the continent on the ground twice in the last three months---just cannot do it again.
Totally agree. I do not understand why this has not been corrected. What can we do? How about if we all refuse to fly until this has been corrected completely?
Having occurred over a heavily populated area, there would like be 100's who would have seen the missle. We will know by tonight if there are people climing that.
Unless one *likes* the thrill of chasing wild water fowl hither & fro' day & night.
The government refuses to rearm the pilots as they were before the 1968 Gun Control Act.
The government refuses to put foriegn Middle Easterners working at airports through new security checks or to fire any of them.
The government refuses to protect our border and deport and or arrest all illegal aliens and terror linked individuals.
The government refuses to check Middle Easterners and Foriegn national more extensively at the airport than they do our own citizens who have no reason to be considered suspect.
The government has released hundreds of Arabs/Middle Easterners who they arrested after Sept. 11 that they suspected were linked to terror groups and did not deport them in case they were terrorists.
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So, as you can see, our federal government is leaving America citizens easy targets for biological, chemical or airplane attacks!
SICKENING!
We must pray for America!
Um, speak for yourself. Conspiracist nitwits think 800 was brought down by a missle.
28 posted on 11/12/01 10:32 AM Pacific by Archie Bunker on steroids
And how much yiou want to bet they are laying off a lot of the older, higher-paid, higher-skilled American citizen maintainance, baggage handlers, and security folks, while keeping the lower paid less skilled foriegn nationals--many of whom are Middle Easterners.
Then why was it delayed for an hour on the ground before takeoff?????
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