For Air Crash Detectives, Seeing Isn't Believing

New York Times via TWA800.com ^ | 6/23/2002 | MATTHEW L. WALD

[Swordmaker]

HUNDREDS of people watched the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 near Kennedy International Airport in New York on Nov. 12, and in the course of 93 seconds they apparently saw hundreds of different things.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, which announced this month that it had gathered 349 eyewitness accounts through interviews or written statements, 52 percent said they saw a fire while the plane was in the air. The largest number (22 percent) said the fire was in the fuselage, but a majority cited other locations, including the left engine, the right engine, the left wing, the right wing or an unspecified engine or wing.

Nearly one of five witnesses said they saw the plane make a right turn; an equal number said it was a left turn. Nearly 60 percent said they saw something fall off the plane; of these, 13 percent said it was a wing. (In fact, it was the vertical portion of the tail.)

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[Swordmaker]

This article is a prime example of misinformation. Raw witness information without context is used to denigrate all eyewitness testimony.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

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[Swordmaker]

any guesses as to how long it will be before Asmodeus or _Jim shows up on this thread????

[ChasingFletch]

Flight 587.........shoebomber #1. This one was a success!! By the way, reporting that some witnesses saw the plane turn left and some right merely indicates generally that they saw the incident from differnt places from earth.

I was watching the first reports on this incident (on FoxNews and CNN) RIGHT AFTER IT HAPPENED that morning, and all the witnesses reported an explosion near the middle of the plane. Then 15 or 20 minutes later all these witnesses disappeared from the news. Miraculous. Where's Vince's car?

[John H K]

Flight 587.........shoebomber #1

So where was all the FLOATING cabin debris (overhead bin luggage, seat foam, etc.) in Jamaica Bay, genius? Have you seen the ohotos of the test explosion in the cabin of a 747? If you rupture the cabin you get an amazing cloud of small debris.

I didn't see ANYTHING of that nature floating in Jamaica Bay. There's also nothing resembling an explosion sound on the CVR.

But hey, it's FR....whatever I feel like being true, is true.

[coloradan]

Have you seen the ohotos of the test explosion in the cabin of a 747? If you rupture the cabin you get an amazing cloud of small debris.

How does the cabin pressure, compared to the outside pressure, compare between AA587 and the test? And how much explosive was used in the test vs. Reid's shoe bomb? I sincerely hope you're not claiming that all plane bombings, under all different circumstances, will give identical results.

[r9etb]

How does the cabin pressure, compared to the outside pressure, compare between AA587 and the test?

Probably not different enough to matter. When the plane is going 500 kt, air rushing past a hole in the cabin would suck out all of the loose debris.

IMHO this was a failure of the vertical stabilizer and/or rudder. The forces generated by a large yaw excursion can explain all of the things seen here, including a fire (if there was one.)

As an example, go here to see the recent crash of the C-130 in Yosemite. There was no bomb or explosion on that plane, and yet there is flaming fuel streaming from the wings.

[coloradan]

Thanks for your reply, and the link. If something as benign as a serious yaw excursion can explain everything, then why is the NTSB so adamant about discrediting the witnesses? Especially in light of the fact that there are cases of wings on fire, with no bomb, it smacks strongly of coverup.

[ChasingFletch]

"Have you seen the ohotos ".......

I missed the ohotos! You must have been in such a hurry to spew that invective that you lost your head (genius).

[r9etb]

I don't think they're really trying to discredit the witnesses per se, so much as they're trying to point out that the eye-witness reports aren't very helpful to them. I have to think that they'd also like to quell the conspiracy theories that have sprung up around the crash, since they're most likely wrong.

NTSB analysis apparently shows that the composite mounts for the vertical stabilizer broke off -- either before or after the rudder excursions. It is certain that this was the first part of the plane to fall off, as it landed in the bay.

A serious yaw coupled with the tremendous angular momentum of the spinning turbines would produce tremendous torques on the engine mounts, and might well rip them off -- which could indeed explain the flames (if any).

[BJungNan]

So why don't the idiots put cameras in/on the planes and stop all the guessing?

[dighton]

I've come up with the framework of an FR crash-analysis competency test. Higher scores are better.

NTSB report, Northwest 255 (3.6MB pdf)

50 points if without reading the report, you said "an act of terrorism" or "nothing to see here, move along."

100 points if you read the report and said "Detroit, lots of Muslims there, Arab terrorism."

150 points if you read the report and said "Detroit, lots of Muslims there, Israeli terrorism to stir up anti-Muslim feeling."

0 points if you read the report and said, "Oh, no! They didn't properly perform the checklist, so didn't extend flaps and slats before takeoff. Compounding this human error, there was no electrical power to the t/o warning system. It was a fairly short runway, and something tall was past the end of it."

ADD 50 points if you're not quite sure what flaps and slats do. SUBTRACT 50 points if you're a professional pilot or aerospace engineer.

[Orual]

146 pages. Um, can I get back to you in a few (days, weeks, months)?

[ChasingFletch]

"since they're most likely wrong."......Brilliant!!!

Now, maybe you can tell me how Vince got to Fort Marcy Park two hours before his car (genius).....Patrick Knowlton

[MindBender26]

So how did he get his shoe to the base of the vertical stabilizer.

Idiots

New rule. Only licensed pilots with COMM/INST or over 95% on the Private written and 500 hours can post to air crash threads!!! :~)

[ChasingFletch]

". I have to think that they'd also like to quell the conspiracy theories that have sprung up around the crash, since they're most likely wrong."...

Forget about all those conspiracy theories. It was that out of control food and beverage cart, barreling back to the back of the plane, knocking the tail off...........yaw-breath!

[ChasingFletch]

"So how did he get his shoe to the base of the vertical stabilizer."....

A great throwing arm and good timing, expert!

What's your brilliant take on Flight 800? I'll bet all those witnesses in that "incident" were all demented too.

[discostu]

Nobody is saying the witnesses were demented. It's been well established in countless studies that eyewitness testimony is only useful for swaying juries, the human mind is far to maleable and just not a good recording device. The very fact that you have the same number of people saying it turned left as right (and don't give me that "different position on the earth" garbage, these questions are relative to the flight path as relative to where you were standing is beyond pointless) but the other 60% apparently don't think it turned at all tells you everything you need to know about eyewitness testimony. But juries still eat it up like fillet mignon.

the simple fact is that the vert-stab damage that we all saw live on TV when they pulled it out of the water is not consistent with any form of bomb or explosive damage known to man except someone managed to get explosives INSIDE the tail assembly (that's the assembly, not the plane). And if the bad guys can manage to get bombs in the tail assembly we're screwed anyway. On the other hand it is consistent with hitting turbulence forces at the wrong angle and having parts sheared off the plane by those forces. It's not an unheard of method of catastrophe, it's fairly rare at that size of plane but again not unheard of, and the part that sheared off always looks like God reached down and yanked the part off like some kid torturing a bug.

And this crashes bearing on 800 would be 0.

[dighton]

146 pages. Um, can I get back to you in a few (days, weeks, months)?

Bad, very bad. "I don't know anything about that particular accident, and won't venture an opinion before doing some research."

I'm tempted to hit the abuse button.

Pssssst! Just assert something or other, and do it LOUDLY.

[aculeus]

Only licensed pilots with COMM/INST

Sorry. I'm anti-COMM/INST.