Posted on 11/19/2001 1:08:49 PM PST by thesharkboy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American Airlines said on Monday it had completed the Airbus A300 tail and rudder inspections ordered by aviation regulators after the crash of Flight 587 last week in New York and found no safety problems.
The checks were ordered on Friday by the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) after the ill-fated American A300-600 lost its vertical tail fin and other parts and crashed shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport last Monday.
All 260 people aboard the plane and at least five on the ground were killed.
The order to inspect the tail area and certain rudder parts also included Airbus aircraft operated by United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp. . Both of those companies said on Monday they were making good progress on the checks, and had turned up no safety problems.
While investigators do not yet know what caused the crash, they are focusing heavily on the composite makeup of the tail section and extreme rudder movements just after the plane passed through a relatively common bout of turbulence.
Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, is owned by European Aeronautic, Defense & Space Co and BAE Systems Plc .
March 17, 2002 Posted: 10:01 PM EST (0301 GMT)
TULSA, Oklahoma (CNN) -- American Airlines found no problems in the tail sections of TWO Airbus A300 jets after an ultrasonic examination, the carrier announced Sunday.
The Federal Aviation Administration and French civil aviation authorities ordered an ultrasonic examination Friday of the vertical stabilizers on six aircraft that may have experienced high stress during wake turbulence or extreme rudder maneuvers.
The ultrasonic equipment allows inspectors to find damage that may not be visible in the non-metallic composite material that makes up the tail sections of A300s.
After an ultrasonic examination of the tail section of an American Airlines Airbus involved in a 1997 incident turned up evidence of damage, the National Transportation Safety Board ordered inspections of the six aircraft.
The NTSB ordered the inspection of the American Airlines Airbus as part of the investigation of the crash of American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed into a New York City neighborhood last November after its tail section mysteriously fell off. The crashed killed 265 people.
While the NTSB has not determined a cause of that crash, possible damage to the composite material is one of the scenarios being investigated.
The NTSB previously revealed that Flight 587 experienced unusually high force on its tail section, or vertical stabilizer, on takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport. NTSB sources previously speculated this could have been sparked by wake turbulence from a nearby Japan Airlines plane.
In addition to the two American Airlines planes, inspections were also ordered on a FedEx cargo plane and on Airbus A300s operated by Air France, the German military and Tarom, a Romanian airline.
The American Airlines aircraft were inspected at an airline facility in Tulsa. An American Airlines source said the ultrasonic equipment would be moved to FedEx's Memphis headquarters for testing of the FedEx plane.
American currently operates a fleet of 34 A300s, mostly along the Eastern seaboard and in Latin America. The number of Airbus A300s in service worldwide is 242. They began service in 1984, and continue to be manufactured by Airbus today.
As late as January, Airbus maintained that ultrasonic inspections were not needed to assure the safety of A300s. Spokesman Mary Anne Greczyn said Friday the policy was meant to cover only aircraft that have undergone normal operations, not aircraft that have experienced significant stress to their tail sections.
"This is not a major reversal of our policy," she said.
FAA spokesman Les Dorr agreed that this was not a reversal of policy.
"This is a data-gathering effort," he said Friday. "We have one plane whose tail fell off for a still unknown reason. We know that we have another airplane ... that had an event in the past and that now shows sign of some kind of flaw of composite materials in the tail section.
"No one -- at NTSB or the FAA -- has made any conclusions," he added.
CNN Producer Beth Lewandowski contributed to this report.
DITTPThis is so unreal......they know this was a terrorist act ....and they are so afraid of starting a panic .....they will say the stupid tail just fell off! I am so mad I could chew nails! 5 posted on 11/19/01 2:18 PM Pacific by Dog [ Post
DITTO, man!!
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