Posted on 11/16/2001 1:24:12 PM PST by callisto
A videotape that could show exactly what happened to American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed three minutes after taking off from New York's JFK airport on Monday, is in the hands of the FBI -- but the bureau has thus far declined to release it.
New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Tom Kelly confirmed to the Daily News Friday that the agency has given surveillance videotapes from Cross Bay Blvd. and Marine Parkway bridges to the FBI.
"One tape captures the plane taking off from JFK," the News said.
Cross Bay Blvd. and Marine Parkway traverse Jamaica Bay, where the plane's vertical stabilizer was discovered intact after the crash.
Dozens of eyewitnesses have told media outlets they saw an explosion and/or a fire at the juncture of Flt. 587's wing and fusilage moments before it began to break up, losing its tail first, then both its engines.
Catastrophic engine failure, which was first suspected to have caused the explosion, was ruled out Tuesday after NTSB investigators examined the engines and found no evidence of mechanical failure.
Since discovering the engines were working properly, NTSB spokeswoman Marion Blakely -- along with most media outlets -- have quietly dropped references to witness accounts of a midair explosion.
The NTSB now says that wind turbulence from another plane is the most likely cause of the crash. One former jumbo jet veteran pilot was highly skeptical of the turbulence theory.
"If wind turbulence caused that accident, I'll never fly again," Barry Schiff, who flew 747's for TWA, told the New York Post.
But a videotape showing the exact sequence of Flt. 587's break-up could clear up any mystery, showing whether or not the break-up was caused by an explosion or by turbulence.
It's not clear why the FBI has not yet released the MTA video -- or even commented on what it shows. It's also not clear why the Flt. 587 video was not turned over to the NTSB instead of the FBI, which had reportedly adopted a secondary role in the wake of NTSB claims that the crash was an accident.
When an Air France Concorde jetliner crashed after catching fire on takeoff from a rural French airport last year, an amatuer video of the accident was released within 48 hours.
Calls to the FBI's New York office and to MTA spokesman Kelly were not returned by presstime.
The board also disclosed that the plane's flight data recorder, stored in the tail, quit working while the aircraft was still 2,900 feet in the air,This is what really smells. The flight data recorder does not just "quit working." It is a heavily armored box, located usually in the tail cone. What this tells me is that there was bad stuff going on inside the plane that severed the connections between the various sensors and the FDR. Bomb? Incendiary? What?
One of the things I think conspiracy "debunkers" miss is the way classic "conspiracy" technic has been made standard operating procedure by modern businesses & institutions.
Surely you've noticed things like a particular actress's face will appear on six different magazine covers in the same month. Or how every non-fiction TV show (and some drama/comedy and even NEWS shows) will do segments promoting particular movies all within days of each other. All those things are planned months (or even years) in advance. Those things don't happen by accident. They happen because dozens -- or even hundreds -- of publicity people and advertising people and finance people get together and PLAN SUCH THINGS OUT.
Now, in the mainstream media, we never see these "planning" things happen. They happen "behind the scenes" and then "play out" for the public. Media companies don't televise their production meetings. Advertising companies never release ANY of their methodologies. Many of these things aren't SECRET (many are), but my point is WE, the general public, ARE NOT MADE PART OF THIS BEHIND THE SCENES PROCESS.
My assertion -- and that of many "conspiracy theorists" -- is that it's not just the MEDIA and ENTERTAINMENT business worlds that have adopted this companion process of 1) behind the scenes machinations; and 2) "on stage" visible effects.
All the same control/manipulation/exploitation benefits that the entertainment business derives from breaking its operations into two phases, (i.e., "behind the scenes" and "for public consumption"), also accrue to the world of politics and the world of business over all.
So, "conspiracies" aren't "hatched" with every strange event -- they are simply on-going as part of the standard operating procedure of the government and business worlds. And it's not that we don't see them. Rather a) we accept the whole concept that many things are "behind the scenes;" and simply don't look for many things (or, rather, the media doesn't look for many things); and b) there's no way for us, sitting -- so to speak -- IN FRONT of the stage, to recognize just how vast the area BEHIND the stage really is or how COMPLICATED it really is. (In theaters, real stages have hidden doors, cables overhead, etc., allowing the "backstage area" to interact with the stage. In the metaphor space "behind the scenes" of daily life there are similar "mechanisms.")
Conspiracies are not things that politicians and businessmen dream up to "cover up" stuff. Conspiracies are the essence of the modern world.
Mark W.
The scenario of mechanical failure is (were I a conspiracy theorist) contains much greater motivation for the government to lie to the American people over. If folks thought found out that the airline had flown an ship that was not airworthy and where maintenance/inspection had not been done correctly, it would devastate American Airline. It would also seriously decrease confidence in the mode of travel. Certainly for those who would fly, most would reject any travel agents offer of an airbus flight.
Lastly, one has to ask why a president with much credibility and trust of the people (at least according to the polls) would run the risk of being exposed as a liar over something like not telling people what they already know - that terrorists are still in the country and not all have been found. Bottom line is it would be in the best interest of this administration for this to turn out to be an act of terror. It would certainly be seen by DEMS as an opportunity for a complete takeover of the airline industry by government.
None of these arguments make any sense to me. None of the speculation without the information makes sense to me. And certainly none of the distrust directed at a president who doesn't have a track record of lying to the American people makes sense to me. If it were Al Gore who were president right now I might buy it because he lied to the American people repeatedly and even believed his own stuff. We don't have a headcase in the Whitehouse right now, so I'm having a difficulty thinking of him as the anti-patriot lying scum that many seem to consider him.
He got banned. Went into an anti-American tailspin after 9-11, I heard, and it wasn't appreciated. Too bad, because despite what so many posters are saying about him now that he has no opportunity to reply, Michael wasn't off-base about everything. (Just about enough things, though, apparently...)
I was funnin' you, ma'am. I've had so many people trying to pigeon-hole me as a conspiracy nut, I thought I'd pigeon-hole back. But the joke was in bad taste and fell flat. So I apologize.
Not so fast there, eh?
The "dot size" is determined by two factors: the len's angle of coverage (which is itself determined by the lens's focal length & the size of the imaging target), and the subject's (the plane) distance from the lens.
The wider the len's angle, the larger close items appear, and the smaller distant items appear.
From what I've observed, most security cameras generally have wide-angle lenses, to allow them to capture the most possible close activity. (People who install security cameras are concerned with what's going on within maybe a fifty foot radius, not a five or ten mile radius.)
Thus, it's quite possible for the plane to be a tiny dot in the security tape.
"Iceberg, Greenberg, Goldberg, they're all the same to me."
I was starting to think I was the only one who ever heard that joke. :)
Probably because the cause has not been established yet. You don't think the FBI should be involved?
Point taken.
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