Investigators Find Signs Birdstrike May Have Caused Crash of Flight 587

Wall Street Journal ^ | November 13, 2001 | SCOTT MCCARTNEY

[Axion]

Investigators examining one of the separated engines from American Airlines Flight 587 found foreign debris inside, indicating that the engine may have ingested a flock of birds and then caught on fire.

The engine burned internally, people close to the investigation said. But its parts appeared intact, except for the damage from what is known in aviation as ``foreign object debris,'' or ``FOD.'' That would suggest that the engine didn't suffer a catastrophic failure from some mechanical breakdown, but from sucking in birds, these people said.

[discostu]

Depends on the airport layout and which runway. Haven't cruised around JFK I don't know how visible 22R is or even if there's room to hangout in a vehicle. Out west, where I live) there's generally a big deadzone around the runways, you wouldn't be able to see the plane until it was in the climb, at which point it's a high angle (low profile for a ground shot on the engines).

Of course there's still the problem of your average seafull having more metal in his gut than most bullets (and generally harder metal). Add to that the adittional security of a two engine plane, one of the reasons for the second engine is safety, most planes can be flown well enough to land on just one engine, they won't make good time but they will stay up. While I'm not sure about the bird scenario (I'm not planning on taking anything from the NTSB seriously for at least a week, crash investigations are slow to produce results), it's more likely than the rifle scenario you outlined.

[justlurking]

It was Les Nessman, not the "Big Guy," who arranged to drop the turkeys on a supermarket parking lot. Instead of flying, they came down like bombs. Les later said, "I thought turkeys could fly."

No, it was a joint "operation" by Herb and Mr. Carlson. They kept it a secret from the rest of the staff, including the station manager.

The live radio report by Les was a parody (!) of the Hindenberg (I think) disaster, including a redux of "Oh, the humanity".

Carlson was the one that said "I thought turkeys could fly".

For a more or less complete transcript, see:

http://freepages.tv.rootsweb.com/~eeyore/wkrp/turkeys.html

[Dan Day]

The tail came off clean. So that means the 'Giant Bird' theory is down the toilet. It was a tail bomb - the same was used on egyptair 990 - which was a 767

Excuse me, Einstein, but a "tail bomb" would make a bigger mess of the tail than would the separated engine scenario. Depending on where it was placed, it would either have blown away a section of the tail assembly, or shards of the fuselage would still be bolted to the tail assembly. It would not have "come off clean".

Parts *do* "come off clean" when they are snapped off the plane by EXTERNAL forces, like wind forces greater than they can handle, or strikes by other separating parts of the aircraft.

Try again, after taking off that tinfoil hat.

[185JHP]

You're right. The supercilious smirking posts of the chronic debunkers don't have much credibility when they *always without exception* show up taking the "move along, nothing to see here" side of every controversy. If they had better brains, they would, for verisimilitude, occasionally point out some faults in the Ministry of Truth spinscams. But OTOH, if they had better brains, they'd be more dangerous...

[Dan Day]

Pictures of the upright tail section were shown repeatedly being pulled out of Jamaica Bay--which indicates clearly that it came off first, inasmuch as the crash location in Queens is further along in the flight path.

Sigh. When did they stop teaching physics in school?

Throw a large rock and a large piece of plywood. Which is going to travel farther?

Even if the tail came off last (by a few seconds -- when planes come apart they do it in a hurry), it would tumble and quickly come to a halt in its horizontal trajectory, ending up dropping pretty much straight down from the point of separation. The fuselage and engines, however, being javelin and rock shaped, respectively, would have sailed a lot farther in the direction of the plane's flight before air resistance slowed their forward trajectory and brought them arcing to the ground.

The break-up occurred at about ten thousand feet, the aerodynamics of the separated parts is going to be the biggest factor on where they ended up landing.

[185JHP]

I don't like or agree with much of what "Single Bullet Spector" says - but I liked it when he said "Our nation can't survive half slave and half Freeh!"

[Fury]

You mean to tell me a flockin' bird took the plane down? Pleeeease! The bird must have bit the wing off and spit it at the tail. It was like a giant bird fight? I'm sorry, but this story just doesn't fly well.

Canada Geese being ingested in the engines of an AWACS in 1995 took that plane down. It happens.

[Fury]

Bird strikes are not a viable source of FOD resulting in a MAJOR mechanical failure/fire/engine separation in this day and age; the only way they become a legitimate candidate is with some VERY OLD airframes.

Please, your ignorance is showing.

[Fury]

Now answer me this: did those accidents cause wreckage to be spread over a scattered area, or did the aircraft auger into the ground intact?

In the case of the AWACS that crashed at Elmendorf AFB, wreckage was over a semi-scattered area. The aircraft did not impact the ground intact.

[bootless]

Hmm... thanks. I'm starting to lose situational awareness on the timeline of this one. :-) When they get the data recorder timeline out, that will help my visualization of this one. My brain is full (and I have 11 browser windows open, too.). Thanks for the info.

[Dan Day]

It was proven in the TWA800 events that our government is quite capable of formulating a phony theory to explain an airplane crash and use every resource to get people (sheeple in your case) to believe it.

"Proven", eh?

As they say in "The Princess Bride", "You keep using that word -- I don't think it means what you think it means."

[Dan Day]

ok...so lets say the engine fell off and hit the tail...so you have the engine and the tail in the some spot at the same time. The engine is more heavy then the tail and the tail would glid more meaning the engine would hit the ground well before the tail.

Absolutely not.

The tail piece would not "glide", it would tumble like a thrown sheet of plywood and quickly go from a horizontal velocity of 500mph (or whatever) to zero, at which point it would drop pretty much straight to the ground (fluttering as it went).

The engine, meanwhile, would continue to fly forward at 500mph like a thrown baseball, arcing down to hit the ground much farther along the path of the plane's initial course than the tail piece.

[Dan Day]

Um, the tail fell off FIRST.

Present your proof. Simply stating it over and over again and capitalizing it doesn't count.

[Fury]

It will be funny to watch when you catch a whiff of reality.

You have to understand. There are several people on this thread that just can't stand for this to be an accident not the cause of some action such as a massive government cover-up. It ruins their whole day to think otherwise.

[Bommer]

It was a flock of birds crashing into the center fuel tank that caused the explosion!!!!!

[christine]

with all due respect, i think our government has given us reason to be suspicious. it's not like they haven't lied to us before. ;)

[Dan Day]

Could someone with more than a tad of physics speak to the following: If a detached engine sliced off the rear stabilizer, doesn't that mean the engine was moving more slowly in the flight direction than the rest of the aircraft? With less forward speed, wouldn't it drop somewhat faster? Just wondering.

It could have gone practically any direction in the first few seconds after separation, depending on how it finally tore loose, whether it was still operating residually and providing its own thrust, how the wind (500mph+) of travel caught and deflected it, whether it hit another part of the plane first and was "bounced", etc. etc.

[Dan Day]

Would think that our engineers should be able to design the front of the engines so that birds can't accidentally fly in. If not they should be able to improve the design. Just would need some kind of shield on the engine front.

Wouldn't work.

All you'd get would be the bird punching a hole through the "shield", and then the bird *and* pieces of metal shielding shrapnel would end up inside the engine, which would be worse than just the bird.

Since the plane is flying at roughly 500mph, which is a large fraction of the velocity of a .45 caliber bullet, anything that the plane flies into will hit the plane with that much relative velocity.

A .45 caliber bullet weighs only 145 grains, and can punch entirely through a washing machine. Now imagine a "bullet" weighing several POUNDS like a good-sized bird, at the same velocity. It'll rip through any sort of shield you could put in front of the engine (except for thick plate steel, and then the engine would have a wee bit of trouble breathing in the air it needs).

[patriciaruth]

And I believe that the pilot of Egyptair 990 pushed the control stick forward and committed suicide.

The co-pilot turned off the engines and the pilot (Captain) was unable to recover the aircraft after he rushed back onto the flight deck. Reason for co-pilot's action can only be speculation.

[Nimitz]

I am a mechanical engineer and a P.E.. I have worked on advance class gas turbines, as well as aero-derivatives for 13 years. I was a principal contributor to the test cell being constructed by Air New Zealand for LM6000 class turbines, and, for that matter implemeted design spec changes for the CF56, particularly, blade coating technology changes. I can agree that a bird may hit a windshield and damage it, or even hurt the aircraft skin, but control surfaces are at the trailing edges of the wings. SHOW ME ONE EXAMPLE OF A GE CF56 or GE90 being destroyed by a BIRD IN FLIGHT!! FACTS you Clymer A*&HOLE.