Patali: Pilot of AA flight dumped fuel prior to crash, in (likely) response to mechanical failures

Gov. Pataki | 11/12/01 | WABC Radio

[Steven W.]

Gov. Pataki is reporting that the pilot of the ill-fated American Airlines flight dumped most of the airplane's fuel over Jamaica Bay, anticipating a crash landing and most likely indicating a trained response to onboard mechanical failures.

[JRandomFreeper]

said that fuel can be dumped at any time

Sure, you can press the button at any time, but pilots tend to follow procedure, and there wasn't time for a fuel dump procedure. We'll know when they check the cockpit switches and dump valves.

/john

[BlueHorseShoe]

I feel so sorry for these people, too. And I couldn't help thinking this morning how much it really does mean to have elected leaders that are actually native to the state or district. (Not Hitlery the witch...I'm being kind, I know.)

But how often I think of that when Guiliani is speaking or others involved that are truly New Yorkers. And what a discomfort it would be to have someone speaking on your behalf who only knows the history of the area because they "read up" on it. Heck, anybody can pass a stupid test on the facts. But they haven't lived the life in those places and haven't known the people inimately.

Appalling...shame on Hillary. (I hate her guts...can you tell.)

[Nimitz]

Your kidding, right? The damn thing is still burning. Believe what you will. Pataki is fighting the battle of his life to halt the spiral of economic destruction that is taking place in his state. It has been going on for 4 years and has been accelerated in recent months. Pataki knows they dumped fuel huh? Fifty different slants on this story are floating right now. The fires are still BLAZING and the NTSB is already out with a probable ".....looks like mechanical failure..." Right. Pataki is just shoring 'em up.

Remember TWA800

[jlogajan]

I think that the safest assumption is ...

There is no reason to make an assumption, hence there is no "safest" assumption in this case.

[jlogajan]

I think that the safest assumption is ...

There is no reason to make an assumption, hence there is no "safest" assumption in this case.

[nicmarlo]

I suspect it will take quite a while to learn the truth about this (if ever.) In the meantime I think that the safest assumption is that it was a deliberate act of sabotage.

How long did it take to determine what happened to the Concorde last year? Didn't it take awhile before they truly learned what the problem was? I also seem to recall another plane crash (was it J.F.K., Jr.?) took them quite awhile to say it was mechanically related (or otherwise). But in this crash, everyone is saying, almost immediately, "it's mechanical." I find that more than odd.

[Trust but Verify]

Has it occurred to any of you experts that maybe Pataki has a little more info than YOU do?

[mlbford]

Uh Oh, the enviromentalist should be coming out soon. That is the habitat for the pigeoned toed bay salamander. I smell a multi million dollar study.

[NorseWood]

If he had time to dump fuel, wouldn't he also have had time to radio a distress call?

[Trust but Verify]

Why would he do that? To ruin his credibility? Right.

[nevergore]

"The fuel left floating on the surface of the bay "

Uhhh, Could that be because the wing that was loaded with fuel was in the bay? Just guessing.....

NeverGore

[BlueHorseShoe]

Whoops, typo...inimately = intimately

[The Vast Right Wing]

Were the firefighters booing her in the background?

[Salo]

My personal favorite goes along the lines of "abortion is legal and a huge number of fetuses are aborted every day and since that is happening, we should not really worry about this". I haven't paged down enough to see that one on this thread yet, but it makes frequent appearences and even made it into my local newspaper. The letter writer said something along the lines of, and I am not making this up, we should not worry about the 5000+ people murdered at the WTC because abortion is legal and we lose far more people to abortion than terrorism.

[LTCJ]

This wouldn't make sense since the pilot did not call back to the tower and tell them what he was doing.

Ding, ding, ding. Correct. No pilot is going to initiate a fuel dump in response to a situation before declaring an emergency. The fuel in the bay came from an unintentional system breach.

Pataki is Grade-A clueless on this. Worse yet, he is poorly advised.

[JeremyM]

I doubt he would have that much food left over from breakfast. I'm sure he would've ate it all in that sitting.

[Travis McGee]

A fifty caliber sniper round fired up the runway could easily hit the 12' diameter jet intake and cause the engine to self destruct.

Instead of posting National Guardsmen inside of terminals, they should be on the perimeters and approaches.

[Tory-Oxonian]

"The Klintons are the turd that won't flush."

You got me laughing on that one!!