[vmatt]

Without the vertical stabilizer it would be difficult to gain altitude would it not?

Today, 11-16-01 Excerpts from Boston Globe

The carbon-fiber tail fin on the plane that crashed, known as the vertical stabilizer, snapped off just above six carbon loops that are used to attach the fin to the fuselage. The loops fit into metal sockets on the fuselage, and the connnection is secured with six titanium metal bolts.

The carbon fiber around one of the six loops on the tail fin was repaired during the plane's manufacturing in 1988, the NTSB said this week.

Investigators said the metal fittings and bolts held through the crash, but the vertical stabilizer snapped off on a line that runs across the carbon loops.

[callisto]

The part of this that bothers me is that the first day it was noted in a press conference that the airplane that took off prior to Flight 587 was 8 miles in front of it. This number is not in agreement with the NTSB's statement of the distance parameters behind and below the first plane in which the vortex should extend. No matter the angle I look at this I cannot reconcile the distances as causing the accident due to the vortex. Any airplane engineers around that can help explain this discrepancy?