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Former NTSB Official Doubts Accident Caused Flt. 587 Crash
www.newsmax.com | 11/12/01 | Carl Limbacher

Posted on 11/12/2001 7:40:57 PM PST by Freedom of Speech Wins

Monday Nov. 12, 2001; 11:34 p.m. EST

Former NTSB Official Doubts Accident Caused Flt. 587 Crash

Aviation expert and former National Transportation & Safety Board official Vernon Grose said late Monday that he's increasingly skeptical that the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 was purely accidental.

"I am backing away from the ready idea that this is simply an accident," Grose told Fox News Channel's John Scott.

The veteran air crash prober said that he questions the sequence in which the plane broke up over Jamaica Bay before slamming into a residential area in Rockaway, Queens.

"Photographs you've already shown tonigt (indicate) the vertical stabilizer of the aircraft with the American Airlines insignia right on it (fell into) Jamaica Bay long before the engine falls off in Queens," he told Scott.

Grose said that if the vertical stabilizer detached from Flt. 587 over Jamaica Bay, which the plane traversed before plummeting to the ground in Rockaway, it suggested that catastrophic engine failure alone may not have caused the crash.

"No, I don't think that's the situation at all," he told FNC.

"The engine that came free, which apparently was the number 1 left engine, and crashed on land - that was well after the vertical stabilizer was detached from the aircraft and that tells me that somehow..... that the airplane was progressively disintegrating, not just losing an engine and then diving into the ground."

"Earlier today I thought it was simply the loss of an engine that caused this," Grose told FNC. "But I'm not convinced now.... I am becoming more skeptical."


TOPICS: Breaking News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aaflight587; flight587
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To: ChicagoRepublican
Newsmax reported it correctly. I saw the actual interview on FNC about an hour ago and what NM reports is what Grose said.
21 posted on 11/12/2001 8:01:48 PM PST by valleygal
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To: Husker24
Think about it, a jet traveling 3 to 4 hundred knots at take off, losing the left engine would cause the craft to pitch to the left. A jet going that fast sideways would lose the tail fin...
22 posted on 11/12/2001 8:01:52 PM PST by maxamillion
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To: Operation Infinite Jumble
I heard someone say that the plane may have leaked the fuel. That is different than the pilot dumping fuel. All they know is that fuel wound up in the water below.
23 posted on 11/12/2001 8:02:07 PM PST by Paranoid-Pessimist
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To: Husker24
True, that verticle stabilizer is the odd thing in this. Maybe the engine started to disinigrate and a piece of it shot out and cut off the stabilizer in mid flight before it fell off, that even seems a little far fetched though considering the proximity of the engines and the stabilizer.

The witness reports I've read here on FR indicate that the wing was disintegrating and it was the wing debris that hit the vertical stabilizer causing it to break off. At first I didn't think an engine failure would cause much wing damage because most of it is mounted in front of the wing, but someone posted a report of problems with this particular engine indicating that a small section of the rear of the engine is under the wing and can throw debris perpendicularly into the wing root. The post also indicated that the engine can be cut half, possibly causing a separation with a big piece flying back and damaging the wing. The rest of the engine may not have separated until the plane was out of control.

24 posted on 11/12/2001 8:02:13 PM PST by Moonman62
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To: mcollins
Great post!
25 posted on 11/12/2001 8:03:18 PM PST by Paranoid-Pessimist
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To: Operation Infinite Jumble
The CNN story that the pilot dumped fuel was wrong, according to MSNBC because you can't dump fuel on that plane. Fuel probably leaked out.
26 posted on 11/12/2001 8:03:40 PM PST by Hagrid
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To: Operation Infinite Jumble
Airbus 300-600 is rated to fly fully fueled on one engine, but there is no fuel dumping capacity built into this type of plane.
We covered this today after Pataki came up with this rediculous story. He later recanted.
27 posted on 11/12/2001 8:03:42 PM PST by concerned about politics
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To: Freedom of Speech Wins
I just keep thinking that somebody messed with that plane so it would have mechanical or structural problems and come apart. A guy on Hardball said that there would be thorough interviews of the ground crew who checked the plane out before it took off. Then again it seems like if a terrorist had infiltrated the ground crew he would sabbotage a plane that was headed inland and not out to sea where it would do less damage if it did not fall apart until it was over the water.
28 posted on 11/12/2001 8:05:15 PM PST by Theresa
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To: Stevieboy
CNN did not. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't 'that' what CNN does? Carries stuff like that live? Especially stuff like that?

I know you're probably not going to believe me, but I know the guy that produces Aaron Brown's show, which is what was on the air at 10:30. He's kind of a quirky guy, and would have had no trouble taking one look at the lineup for that news conference and saying, "I'm not gonna air this crap!" Especially since Aaron Brown had some pretty good guests on tonight, including a guy from Far Rockaway who had a great (and lengthy) home video of the crash scene.

In fact, Brown's 10:00 show was supposed to have been quite quirky in its own right, lots of humorous "don't take it all too seriously" elements, stuff like that. But 9/11 took that blueprint right off the page, at least for the foreseeable future.

29 posted on 11/12/2001 8:05:24 PM PST by Timesink
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To: Husker24
LMAO....
30 posted on 11/12/2001 8:05:34 PM PST by MistyCA
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To: Freedom of Speech Wins
Plenty of former NTSB officials. Look at the evidence, first-- then the present NTSB can tell us what they think.
31 posted on 11/12/2001 8:05:42 PM PST by let freedom sing
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To: Stevieboy
And I think this Fox guy's theory sounds at least plausible at first glance, for what it's worth.
32 posted on 11/12/2001 8:06:32 PM PST by Timesink
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To: Theresa
I just keep thinking that somebody messed with that plane

It had just been "serviced" yesterday, according to American Airlines.

33 posted on 11/12/2001 8:07:18 PM PST by concerned about politics
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To: maxamillion
Maybe, but I dont remember any witnesses saying that the plane pitched any direction, it just went straight down after it came apart.
34 posted on 11/12/2001 8:07:18 PM PST by Husker24
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To: Keith
Maybe Osama and the Al Queda accepted Mike the firefighter from Queens challenge?
35 posted on 11/12/2001 8:08:00 PM PST by 4Freedom
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To: Freedom of Speech Wins
Well I am sure the government will tell us the truth here.I really believe that.Of course I do. ha!
36 posted on 11/12/2001 8:08:37 PM PST by lexington minuteman 1775
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To: mystomachisturning
I am not an airline mechanic, and I don't play one on TV, but I don't get this:

Where are the jagged, connecting pieces that should be evident? Hoses, attached pieces of the fuseulage? Some tremendous shock load must have been applied to the airframe from the side to do this. I have no theory.

arkady

37 posted on 11/12/2001 8:09:37 PM PST by arkady_renko
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To: lexington minuteman 1775
Well I am sure the government will tell us the truth

Like Clinton the LIAR told the truth about 800. Witnesses saw the missile that day.

38 posted on 11/12/2001 8:10:39 PM PST by concerned about politics
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To: let freedom sing
Bottom line:

There is absolutely no preliminary evidence indicating an accident but plenty of preliminary evidence that it wasn't

The NTSB NEVER speculates on the cause of a crash, epecially 3 hours after the fact, that is, until today they didn't, when they ceased to be a reliable impartial body.

Nobody is asking the obvious question, which is were the bags going into the hold searched or x-rayed?

If the answer is no, nobody in his or her right mind has any business getting on an airplane until this becomes SOP.

39 posted on 11/12/2001 8:13:49 PM PST by Rome2000
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To: arkady_renko
Ive got no real theory on that one either, I was thinking that some debris from the engine could have sliced off the stabilizer but looking at that pic of the plane that theory doesnt really seem possible since the stabilizer is so much higher than the engines.
40 posted on 11/12/2001 8:15:06 PM PST by Husker24
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