Records: Plane Suffered Turbulence

AP ^ | 11-14-01 | JONATHAN D. SALANT

[Oldeconomybuyer]

WASHINGTON -- Safety records show the American Airlines plane that crashed in New York was severely shaken by air turbulence seven years earlier in an episode that injured 47 people.

One possibility safety investigators are considering is that the Airbus A300 broke apart Monday after hitting turbulence from the plane taking off before it at Kennedy International Airport.

[slym]

Newsmax has also picked up this interview with Vernon Grose! See www.newsmax.com.

I copied it from a post on "The Reading Room" of www.rumormillnews.

I must also add that I watched this particular episode of the O'Reilly Factor live in Tokyo and was astounded to hear Mr. Grose tell the truth about the TWA-800 investigation (which he suspects may have cover up the truth). In fact, I cheered him so loudly that both my cats jumped off the sofa and took flight!

Read this post - - it's a pretty good summary by someone who saw the same show stateside:

From: Andrea Ritze
Date: Wed Nov 14, 2001 5:20 am
Subject: AA 587 and TWA 800 on Fox News

Tuesday evening on the Fox News Channel program, "O'Reilly Factor," I watched the segment where Bill O'Reilly interviewed "former NTSB investigator" Vernon Grose. While asking questions about the crash of AA 587, O'Reilly said something to the effect that he hoped that the NTSB would not behave like this was a "cover-up," which was the problem surrounding the investigation of TWA 800.

At O'Reilly's association of the word "cover-up" to TWA 800, Vernon Grose reacted positively to this lead-in, which led to O'Reilly's follow-up question. What did Vernon Grose think about the NTSB's official conclusion on TWA 800?

Grose responded that he had interviewed more people than anyone else who worked on the TWA 800 investigation, and that HE WAS NOT SATISFIED with the NTSB's official conclusion for the cause of the crash.

However, there was only the implication that there was a cover-up in the TWA 800 investigation. Grose was not explicit, and O'Reilly went on to the next point.

NOTE: The "O'Reilly Factor" program will repeat (Tuesday night) Wednesday morning from 4am-5am, EST, on the Fox News Channel.

WHAT A SCOOP! TOO BAD O'REILLY DIDN'T FOLLOW UP PROPERLY, BUT THEN AGAIN, OLD BILL'S PROBABLY CONNECTED... HE LOOKED SHOCKED, THOUGH, BUT HASTILY MOVED ON.

[185JHP]

Ypu might want to check out Trade-A-Plane - there are some tandem seat P-51 models still flying. I believe they're used to "check out" pilots before they fly alone - but they'd probably sell you a ride.

[col kurz]

These are wonderful machines, but like all machines they are used and abused to varying degrees. The longer any machine stays in service is dependent upon design, maintanence expended and severity of service. Many examples in the marine industry where ships of a certain class have given good service for 50+ years while many of their class failed in less then a dozen. I'd say, in this situation, look to design coupled with severity of service.

[supercat]

Commuter airlines stink, according to the statistics - they are no safer than driving the same distance, but I don't know by how much air taxis in Alaska and other high-risk categories throw off the number.

The first few minutes and last few minutes of any flight are the most dangerous. Generally, once a plane has reached cruising altitude the risk of something catastrophic happening before landing isn't affected much by the distance traveled. The risks of airplane travel may generally be best assessed as risk per flight.

In a car, however, the risk per mile is roughly the same on long trips and short trips. The risks of auto travel are thus best measured as risk per mile.

For short trips, the risk of a fatal crash when driving is probably no worse than when flying. For long trips, though, the risks of a crash happening at some time during the trip increas. By contrast, the risk of a crash on an airplane is independent of trip length, so for long trips planes are safer than cars.

[Revel]

"Why wasn't it in the database on Monday?"

Probably because they did not get around to adding it until wensday...If you know what I mean.

[alphadog]

I also heard that the JAL 747 was eight miles away, at the time and that the safe clearence to avoid turbulence is only five miles.

[Criminal Number 18F]

I think every passenger has the right to see the safety records of an aircraft before they board it.

Those records are already inspected at intervals by FAA inspectors who know what they're doing. It wold take a layman months to read the logs of this plane and its engines, and none of it would make sense to him. The expression "hog lookin' at a wristwatch" comes to mind.

Also AA and all other airlines that own AB300s need to ground them all until it is proven that they are safe for flight.

There were probably 300 of them in the air monday, and 300 more every day this week. Say 1200 sorties worldwide -- of which one crashed, for reasons yet unknown. It makes more sense to figure out why this one crashed and only then try to fix it. Which may or may not require grounding the planes, but probably won't (based on extensive past experience).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[orlop9]

Full Text Here

"Meanwhile, in Tulsa, the maintenance records group discovered that one of the six main attachments that held the Flight 587 plane's tail to the fuselage underwent a significant repair in 1988, soon after the plane rolled off the assembly line but before it was delivered to American.

The left-center fitting "delaminated," and technicians in Toulouse, France, where the plane was built, added a "doubler" and rivets to reinforce the joint, Black said at the evening briefing. Airbus then delivered the plane to American but did not indicate that special inspections of the repaired area were necessary.

The attachments are to be checked every five years, Black said. The last check of the American A300-600's tail/fuselage attachment fittings took place in December, 1999, which is also when the plane had its last heavy maintenance visit."

I think maybe the bullseye is pointing at AirBus now

[placebo]

Move along, people, nothing to see here....

[Waco]

Absent terror activity, it looks like stall-spin to me.

[unending thunder]

Rough (very) translation of Nostradamus (Circa 1287 AD) From the medieaval French / Norman. Ver. 2 Bete Test

Verily did the big aluminium shiny box symbolising AA587 ( a magick Number) with many souls around ascend the high heavens and did the big wind blow the birds of the air into the power boxes. (Marginalia notes suggest that previous Big Bird much did roar and make the air tremble and shake) After this the pointing top fin fell off then, did the power boxes and then the whole thing fell from the sky whilst the people watched in amazement on this the Day of the Veterans..(See Codex Ikarus).. all this ion the time it taketh a skilled cook to boil an hen's fruit.

Great were the fires thereof as the men stood around in amazement in the land of the Queens and Kings

Verily did the men holding the box remain silent thereof unto the tower called air traffic control, as did the Princes and Kings. Men came forward and said these power boxes are bad and the JKF is verily known to have birds flying and that a bird from the Orient much precedeth with loud thunder .Much thereof, these things happeneth every day methinks.

This a great and unknown accident.Men of the Occident are unknown to cause these problems sayed Bomber Blair as he prayed for their souls, verily. Much wringing of hands and washing of brains followed.

Any who say different are part of VRWC and probably have been drinking from a stream, and have changed their appearance.

This is a big accident and the insurers will pay most heavily, unto the last groat thereof. For it is ordained this is an accident and not thereof a terror of man, be he bearded like the leopard, and fearsome to see who has blazing shooting stick whereof stinger missile to bring down big birds. Much made in the place called the land of the free and the home of the brave and sent all over the earth here, there and everywhere man have the gold, silver and precious jewels thereof to pay for them.

Much shall be made by the tellers of news and the printers thereof of this great event, just as when I foresaw, Hitlery and all she did bring. verily it is said to be true thereof.

Move along, nuthin' to see, got to the mall, buy a car, pump gas.

[cc2k]

The server at nasdac.faa.gov is still down.

I can see entries from that server in the cache of a couple of search engines. It is the correct database to search for this kind of information.

The history of that plane is getting worse, too. Now, Fox and Friends is reporting that the plane had 4 prior unscheduled landings in addition to the turbulence incident near Puerto Rico. One of the incidents allegedly involved smoke in the cockpit.

Also, Avi8tor, you have FreepMail.

[Colt .45]

"Interesting, isn't it, though, how eager everyone is to find some cause, any cause, besides the most likely one?"

According to most folks on here, "It couldn't be an accident ... there is no way a plane just falls out of the sky ... it HAS to be sabotage associated with terrorism!" Same type of thinking that caused so many to die on the "unsinkable" RMS TITANIC.

Now they say that the Vertical Stab had composite rivets holding it on and that a large part of it was made of composite materials. That even presents a more likely scenario for clear air turbulence being the culprit. If any of the rivets had cracks in them, they wouldn't have been visible to the naked eye, but over time were severely weakened by the stresses of flight. If a large portion of them gave way, then that could be the contributing factor of the Vertical Stabilator departing the aircraft.

[Avi8tor]

I have a screen shot from my Temporary Internet Files folder that shows access dates on the 12th.  I havn't been able to find the cached page with the "found no results" message from nasdac.faa.gov.  I'm hoping that it didn't get overwritten yesterday when I found the report.  But, in any case, you can see that I was searching the database on Monday; didn't find a thing.

 

[justlurking]

I have a screen shot from my Temporary Internet Files folder that shows access dates on the 12th. I havn't been able to find the cached page with the "found no results" message from nasdac.faa.gov. I'm hoping that it didn't get overwritten yesterday when I found the report. But, in any case, you can see that I was searching the database on Monday; didn't find a thing.

I don't know if you can figure this out from the historical info you have collected, but I noticed something in the search form that may be important:

• If you copy and paste the entire registration number of "N14053" into the search form, the search will come up empty. The result page will say: "Registration Number: N14053", but you don't get what you want.

• If you leave off the leading "N" and paste only "14053", you will get the report in question. The result page will say "Registration Number: 14053" at the top.

So, my question is: are you sure you didn't accidently include the "N" when you copied and pasted the registration number into the form?

I'm just looking for an explanation, and not trying to hassle you. :-)

[Criminal Number 18F]

Other times where even a hint of mechanical failure occurred all planes of the same type have been grounded and ordered inspected.

Gotta call BS on this. A grounding is very rare. Usually an inspection order is worded such that the airlines can work it into their maintenance schedule. They are often given x number of hours in which to perform the inspection.

Grounding is reserved for severe, smoking-gun, imminent danger kind of safety emergencies. Since we don't know why this crashed, we don't know whether grounding makes sense or not.

Believe me, if grounding is indicated from anything the investigators learn, you will see a grounding in a New York minute. Also, it might be that there is a problem in a subset of A300s (in the past some problems have been associated with certain blocks of serial numbers) or it might actually be in all of them (as the rudder problem with 737s, which are incidentally not grounded while Boeing makes 4,000+ new rudders), or it might even be in more of the Airbuses or even multiple makes (like the kapton wiring problem, which was throughout the fleet).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Criminal Number 18F]

Absent terror activity, it looks like stall-spin to me.

A few reasons why it probably isn't:

• They haven't mentioned a stall warning or stickshaker activation yet. Both of these would be audible on the CVR and the shaker evident on the FDR.
• While it is possible to stall a plane at 250+ kts (you can stall a plane at any speed), it requires some pretty dramatic control inputs to do it.
• In stall-spin accidents, the aerodynamic forces on the plane are not severe. I have seen a lot of them, most of them small planes of course, but they are always intact with all components on the scene. Browse the reports at NTSB and you will notice a couple of stock phrases in these common accidents, including that "continuity of the control systems was established." Clearly wasn't the case here, because as the plane slammed into Rockaway one of the control surfaces was fluttering down to Jamaica Bay like a sycamore seed.

This is clearly a highly unusual accident... as is common with airline accidents, unlike small plane accidents where it is usually just the same old thing with new people involved (grimace). I almost included the rarity of airline stall/spin accidents in the list above, but this one is such an oddball that we can't use rarity or unlikelihood alone to rule things out -- we just have to be aware of what's rare and what's common, to keep our judgment tuned up.

Usually, on a Thursday after a Monday morning prang in a civilised place, you are starting to have a pretty clear picture of what happened. I haven't seen today's news yet but it seems as if we don't yet.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F