Flight 587 Video Shows 'Puff of Smoke' in Sky

Newsmax ^ | November 17, 2001 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[MeekOneGOP]

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2001 11:39 a.m. EST

Flight 587 Video Shows 'Puff of Smoke' in Sky

A second-by-second videotape of the final moments of doomed American Airlines Flight 587 shows a puff of smoke in the sky seconds after it crashed outside New York's JFK Airport Monday, lending credence to eyewitnesses who say the jetliner exploded before slamming into a Rockaway, N.Y., neighborhood.

Though Flight 587 probers have not released the key videotape, shot from a Metropolitan Transportation Authority highway surveillance camera, reporters from New York's Daily News were allowed to view it Friday.

"The tape ... shows a white outline of the jetliner against a clear sky in fairly steep decline," the News reported in Saturday editions. "Seconds later, the outline disappears and the video shows a blurry, white, undefined patch as the plane apparently breaks apart."

Visible in one of the final frames of the sequential videotape is "a puff of white smoke in the sky."

The images of Flight 587's final moments are said to be "very unclear." FBI and NTSB investigators hope to learn more through video enhancement techniques.

On Friday, MTA spokesman Tom Kelly told NewsMax.com that the FBI had turned the videotape over to the NTSB, but apparently both agencies now have copies and continue to analyze them.

Enhancement of the Flight 587 video could confirm the accounts of eyewitnesses like Jackie Powers, who, minutes after the crash, told both ABC News and WABC Radio in New York that she saw "an enormous flash" near the wing on the A-300 Airbus before it dropped from the sky.

"I don't know if it was fire or an explosion," she said. "It appeared that debris fell from the left side [of the plane]. It just plummeted. It had no momentum whatsoever. It just plummeted."

Dozens of other witnesses told various media outlets they saw the jet either explode or catch fire before it crashed.

An explosion would be a problem for NTSB officials, who spent the better part of the last few days trying to sell the idea that the plane's vertical stabilizer snapped off, causing the in-flight breakup, because of "wake turbulence" from a Japan Airlines 747 that had taken off from JFK two minutes earlier.

Independent aviation experts have generally scoffed at the NTSB theory.

"[747 wake turbulence] is not strong enough to be able to break off a tail or to compromise any sort of a normal airplane," said ABC News aviation analyst John Nance on Friday.

"They could turn a little airplane upside down. But especially an A-300, which is a jumbo jet - no way in the world should that ever have any potentially disastrous impact on the aircraft or the tail," he explained.

On Wednesday, an unnamed aviation expert quoted in New York's Newsday said one likely explanation for Flight 587's breakup was a bomb exploding on board. (See: Aviation Expert: Bomb One Likely Cause of Flight 587 Crash.)

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
TWA 800
War on Terrorism

[Thud]

Throw in a conspiracy to make the conspiracy buffs happy. Tell them the cause was an Airbus conspiracy to make money by holding costs down.

[aruanan]

IMHO:

It doesn't sound too H to me.

[El Gato]

If the aircraft yawed violently to the left, the VS would be 'snapped' off to the left

If that's not what I said, it's what I meant. :) However if an external force caused the left yaw, through pushing sideways on the VS, that would be a push to the right on the VS, since the nose moves in the opposite direction from the tail, but the direction the nose moves is the direction of the yaw. If something pushed hard on the right side of the VS, you'd expect it to snap off to the right. However it could have snapped on the rebound, or the push could have started that left yaw, which subsequently caused the tail to break off to the left, as you indicate. It is hard to "talk" about such stuff without being able to draw pictures or at least talk with your hands. (Which I've been doing of course, but only "talking" to myself, which something engineers do all the time)

[SwankyC]

Flight 587 shows a puff of smoke in the sky seconds after it crashed outside New York.

NO KIDDING!!!! REALLY - a puff of smoke AFTER it crashed. Wow, now thats news /sarcasm

[timestax]

Gubment boys did a good job w/propagada. FNC poll says around 78% of USA believe it was an accident.

[timestax]

propaganda

[timestax]

puff of smoke in the SKY !

[mad_as_he$$]

I saw pictures of them loading the rear of the plane onto a truck at the crash sight. The attachmants points seemed to still hve the bolts in them and did not look damaged. Still a very weird situation...

[El Gato]

with the tail ripped off, I'm not sure what the yaw axis is, and whether 'wind' force from the side would yaw a tail-less A300 right or left

The yaw axis is still straight "down", but of course that's not your point. Leaving the wings out of consideration, one might expect a side wind to not cause much yaw force at all, since the area exposed to the wind would be pretty evenly distrubuted to each side of the center of mass, through which that yaw axis passes. That's a "static" sort of analysis, and things were far from static at that point in time, so it's not worth too much weight in one's thinking.

[terilyn]

BIG Bump to your #83.

[terilyn]

Maybe you could give us your opinion? Are you a teacher? You keep asking for opinions but don't tell us what you in all your apparant expertise see here.

I'm no expert and don't claim to be one and no I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night but when I look at this picture, without knowing what it looked like before it came down, tell me why it doesn't look like something exploded causing those darkened rounded portions?

[floriduh voter]

Isn't it odd that nobody to our knowledge used a cell phone before the plane plummeted? Did this happen that quickly? If there were cell phone records, at least we could have found out some things from the back of the plane inside while the pilots were in the cockpit wrestling with the aircraft. The stewardess on an AA flight on 9-11 called in when some innocents were being systematically killed.

[VOA]

No coverup -- they have no motive -- flimsy aircraft will have as bad an effect on passinger
confidence as flimsy security -- no motive to lie and cover up.

I'm keeping an open mind...and currently leaning to mechanical failure. Especially since
I read in The LA Times (yes, I buy it occassionally for opposition research) that when
this particular A300 was delivered, one of the six attachment points for the tail fin
was loose and Airbus had to fix it after delivery.

BUT, I still am bothered by anything I hear from the NTSB that sounds questionable.
Yesterday, I happened to see Oprah. She had Mary Shiavo on, along with live (via TV)
interview with that southern lady who's a spokesperson for the NTSB.
She was trying to fortify the "wake turbulence" explanation by saying that the
Japan 747 was "fully loaded with passengers and fuel" and thus the turbulence would be maximal.

I'm not an engineer...but wouldn't amount/intensity of wake turbulence be
determined by the aerodynamics of a plane...NOT the amount of weight carried within
it's hull? In other word, if a 747 is cruising along at 450 mph, wouldn't the wake turbulence
from the votices from it's wingtips be just about the same if it was flying empty
or loaded to the max?

Maybe I'm missing something, but that statement just didn't ring true with me.

[nicmarlo]

You keep asking for opinions but don't tell us what you in all your apparant expertise see here.

I already asked, and said almost the same thing as you, but he ignored me.

[KirklandJunction]

You've got enginering analysis, I've got pilots paranoia: all I can think of is the a/c got REAL squirrely and the pilot(s) used coordinated control skills BUT THEY DIDN"T KNOW THE VERT WAS GONE!
So pushing rudder pedals was useless......they expected the rudder to help, but.....
......'course I can't answer the why of what happened, but I bet if you could have sufficient time to look at all the remains, you could.
I'd just wander around looking, muttering, praying, and trying to control my intestinal tract. Poor bastards never had a chance.

[Crowcreek]

Your friend's explanation is consistent with the description of events given by the patrolman in the police boat. He said there was a "popping sound", a puff of white smoke from a wing root (fuel evacuated from a ruptured wing tank?), along with lost pieces of wing, then separation of the tail.

This makes more sense than anything I've seen -- Send a copy to the NTSB!

[nicmarlo]

My question to him at 1:26 p.m., post #19: I did look at your photos before commenting. They tell me nothing. I am neither a mechanic, engineer, nor pilot. Forgive my ignorance, however, as I said, the photos don't communicate to me anything. Not meant as criticism to you, rather, my own ignorance.

No response.

[lelio]

Yeah I've been waiting for someone to bring that up: the weight of the aircraft shouldn't have any affect on the amount of turbulence it creates. Turb is when air passes over an object and gets sheared off in a different direction.
The Reynold's number I remember from college aero classes didn't include weight.
But then again a heavier jet wouldn't bounce around as much ... maybe by not bouncing around it causes more of a wake? Dunno.

[Osinski]

I think most thinking people suspect a terrorist act above all else in this political climate.

The government does not think it can afford the consequences if they hammer the point home. Many people don't want change...they prefer the official version of the facts because it allows them to "get on with their lives".