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Aviation Week (Aviation Now) is the best source for aviation related news.

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Details On American Airbus A300 That Crashed In New York Nov. 12

Compiled By AviationNow.com Staff

12-Nov-2001 1:26 PM U.S. EST

Technical information on the American Airbus A300 that crashed near New York John F. Kennedy Airport on Nov. 12:

Aircraft Type: Airbus A300-605R

Registration: N14053

Manufacturer Fuselage No: 420

Rollout date: December 1986

Delivery date: July 12, 1988 to American Airlines by Airbus

Owner: Chase Manhattan Bank (leased to American Airlines)

Engines: Two General Electric CF6-80C2A5s

Airframe maintenance information

Last A Check: Nov. 11, 2001

Last B Check: Oct. 3, 2001

Last Heavy Maintenance Check: Dec. 9, 1999 (N14053 was scheduled for heavy maintenance visit in July 2002).

Engine Maintenance Information

No. 1 Engine: 694 hours since last overhaul

No. 2 Engine: 9,788 hours since last overhaul; 2,887 hours since last shop inspection. (Overhauls typically done every 10,000 hours).

Notes:

American operated 35 A300-600s, including N14053. Of the remaining 34, 10 are owned by the airline.

N14053 was the oldest of American's 35 A300-600s, although it was the seventh A300-600 to join the carrier's fleet.

Sources: American Airlines, Back Information Services, JP Airline Fleets Int'l.

[cc2k]

About three minutes into the flight -- or 107 seconds

What kind of minutes are those? I thought a minute was 60 seconds and 107 seconds was slightly less than 1 2/3 minutes.

How many other "facts" in this article are as good as this bit of math.

[floriduh voter]

Thanks for this update. There's a family in NYC who lost a guy in WTC and they then lost their house in Rockaway. They have every right to develop paranoia. Can you imagine? Collectively they will have post traumatic stress and that "what's next" feeling.

[Solson]

Already posted at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/570902/posts

[John Jamieson]

See "Airframe"

How did Michael Crichton know--before ValuJet, before TWA Flight 800--that airline safety would be a hot topic at the end of 1996? But there's more than an amazing instinct for popular taste at work in his latest thriller--destined to be read by hundreds of thousands of those very same airplane passengers it was designed to scare the seatbelts off. Enroute from Hong Kong to Denver, a brand new plane pitches and dives like a porpoise before crashing. The airline's officer in charge of quality assurance--a sharp-eyed, hard-nosed woman named Casey Singleton--has to find out why, before more passengers and the airline's future go into a tailspin. As always in Crichton's expert hands, readers learn a lot about science while lapping up their thrills.

[Pharmboy]

Several eye (and ear) witnesses on that day described a "popping" sound as the first event. What can that possibly mean? Is there a "bomb" that does not use ignition that could've set this off? Compressed air?

Help me out here folks...

[Stefan Stackhouse]

We seem to be inexorably moving towards only two possible conclusions: either it was sabotage, or else there was a massive maintenance failure. Neither conclusion is likely to encourage more people to go out and buy airline tickets.

[Straight Vermonter]

How does this "engine hitting the tail" persist? The tail landed far earlier than either enging. I dont think the engines fell off and then turned around and flew on eastward.

[VRWC For Truth]

At 127 seconds, one of the pilots indicated that control of the plane has been lost.

This must be the classic line "oh schitzski". Don't tell the tinfoil hat crowd, they would consider these printable comments as lying. LOL

[LikeLight]

Does the persistent use of the word "rattling" in the press accounts of this crash strike anyone else as odd . . . like it is being used as a euphemism for something else more sinister? Kind of like Clinton "groping" Kathleen Willey (somehow, by using this peculiar antiquated word, the press could make the whole event seem less offensive than "sexual assault", which would have been the normal description).