Posted on 01/27/2002 11:38:36 AM PST by Carl/NewsMax
News that a second toll booth video camera captured doomed American Airlines Flight 587's breakup moments after its Nov. 12 takeoff from New York's JFK airport raises new questions about the candor and thoroughness of investigators conducting the probe into the disaster.
Time.com reported Sunday that National Transportation Safety Board investigators "last week got their first look at a remarkable videotape of the deadly accident."
Time adds: "This is the second video record the board has obtained of the crash, but the first one was virtually useless because the plane could be seen only as a tiny speck."
In reality, both traffic surveillance videotapes - shot from a toll booths on causeways that cross New York's Jamaica Bay (adjacent to JFK) - were reportedly turned over to crash probers within four days of the disaster.
On Nov. 16 the New York Daily News reported:
"Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Tom Kelly confirmed that the agency has given surveillance videotapes from the Cross Bay Blvd. and Marine Parkway bridges to the FBI."
At approximately 3 miles distance from JFK, a camera mounted on Cross Bay Blvd's Veterans Memorial Bridge toll booth would have had a much better view of Flight 587's takeoff than one on Marine Parkway - approximately 7 miles away.
But on Nov. 16 the News quoted MTA spokesman Kelly as saying that only one tape captured the plane's breakup - which turned out to be from the more distant Marine Parkway vantage point.
That could have been an oversight on his part. Kelly told NewsMax.com later that day that he had not personally reviewed either videotape but relied instead on the accounts of others.
Kelly also told NewsMax.com, "We turned (the Marine Parkway tape) over to the FBI and they have now turned it over to the NTSB."
Did the FBI withhold from the NTSB the much closer Cross Bay Blvd. videotape?
Otherwise, why is an NTSB source now telling Time.com that the agency got its first look at that better video last week, more than two months after the FBI reportedly took possession of both tapes?
More troubling still, however, is Time.com's claim that the more distant Marine Parkway Bridge tape was "virtually useless."
That's not what a reporter who actually examined the footage said on Nov. 17:
"The tape, viewed by the Daily News, shows a white outline of the jetliner against a clear sky in fairly steep decline. Seconds later, the outline disappears and the video shows a blurry, white undefined patch as the plane apparently breaks apart."
The toll booth obscures the moment of impact but, said the News:
"At the end of the bridge videotape sequence, which has been turned over to the FBI, there appears to be a puff of white smoke in the sky."
Nov. 12, the day of the crash, was a cloudless day in New York, a fact that makes that "puff of white smoke" particularly problematic for investigators who have bent over backwards to ignore the accounts of dozens of eyewitnesses who say they saw a midair explosion and fire before the plane broke apart.
Does the closer Cross Bay Blvd. videotape undermine the NTSB's repeated attempts to blame the crash on mechanical failure? Time.com's source will only say the new evidence shows Flight 587 "flying along normally and intact, and suddenly things start to go very wrong."
Stay tuned.
Huh? How do you work that out?
The difference here being that the NTSB really has little evidence to support their "theories". They are just speculating, and considering their record, it makes perfect sense to question their conclusions. A real conspiracy would involve numerous individuals lying in order to cover up the truth. In this case it's doubtful if anyone really knows the truth. Even the "puff of smoke" could have a number of causes.
"There's no place like pre-9/11 America; There's no place like pre-9/11 America..."
I hope it wasn't another successful terrorism attack, but you seem close-minded to the possibility, indeed probability, that it was.
I'll need a lot more than NewsMax's crappy reporting to agree with your "indeed probability."
My critique of the article stands: it contains few facts, and its lame theorizing doesn't hold water.
No more facts than I have to conclude beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was a terrorist attack.
Unlike you, however, I have over the past few years developed a healthy distrust of anything NewsMax reports.
However, the real world evidence (the snapped-off stabilizer, the corresponding rudder deflections in the flight recorder data, and the lack of evidence for an explosion, as even NewsMax's lame article is forced to admit) lends credence to the idea that it was more likely an accident.
They do still happen, you know.
The airline said the move involving 10 aircraft was an acceleration of already announced plans, and was not related to safety questions arising from the crash of an American A300-600 in November in New York that killed 265 people.
American, a unit of AMR Corp. (NYSE:AMR - news), said the last of its Airbus (ARBU.UL) aircraft dedicated to transatlantic service flew from Boston's Logan airport to London's Heathrow airport on Wednesday.
John Hotard, a spokesman for the U.S.-based airline, said the carrier would boost seating capacity on those planes and use them for domestic and Caribbean service.
The company said in May it had planned to replace the A300s on transatlantic routes with Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA - news) 767 and 777 aircraft by the end of 2003.
But because of schedule cuts after Sept. 11, the airline said there were enough 767s and 777s available to complete the switch now.
The airline vigorously denied the move was in any way related to recent calls by dozens of Airbus pilots at the airline to ground the A300s because of unanswered safety questions.
U.S. safety investigators probing the crash of the AmericanA300-600 are focusing on potential mechanical problems, a possible structural flaw with the tail fin, and actions by the crew.
Flight 587 bound for the Dominican Republic crashed Nov. 12 in a residential area shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport. All 260 aboard were killed as were five on the ground.
The decision to complete the transition of the 10 A300s by the end of January was made in December, Hotard said.
American said its fleet of 34 A300s are better suited to domestic routes and service to the Caribbean and Latin America because of their range and capacity.
The airline said it would temporarily take the 10 A300s out of service to boost seating capacity from 178 to 232 on each plane. This is done by removing the business class seats needed for transatlantic flights.
``Any suggestion that the Airbuses are being put on the ground for any other reason is completely and categorically untrue,'' the airline said in a statement.
Tin foil hats might be the new fashion statement, in our modern cover-up society.
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