At least five witnesses saw fire or explosion. It would be very difficult for five separate people to IMAGINE they saw fire or explosion, yet the turbulance-tail shear theory DOES NOT allow for any fire or explosion.
I am thinking this plane was sabotaged in more than one way.
A combination of a wing joint explosive and the loosening of the vert stabilizer bolts seems to me to fit all available info.
Sure it does. Vertical stabilizer comes off, plane goes into a high-G spin (with engines still at full power), engines break off from the lateral forces, fuel spewing from the engine attachment points goes up in flames.
I am thinking this plane was sabotaged in more than one way.
That is the biggest weakeness of the "sabotage" theory. If you could sabotage the tail, that'd be enough. Why on earth run all over the plane sabotaging everything in sight? What sort of terrorist is *that* obsessive-compulsive?
Furthermore, multiple sabotage points only vastly multiples the chances of 1) getting caught while doing it, and 2) having one of your "doctored" parts failing during taxiing or take-off, causing the take-off to be aborted and blowing the chance of having it fail in flight, where you need it to happen if you actually want the plane to crash.
It makes no sense, it's ridiculous.
A combination of a wing joint explosive and the loosening of the vert stabilizer bolts seems to me to fit all available info.
Horse manure. The bolts are still there, they held just fine. The composite tail *ripped* away from the bolts. I've seen the photographs.
Furthermore, explosives leave tell-tale damage and residues that are hard to miss. No such signs of explosives have been found.
The conspiracy theorists are in a position of having to come up with theories that are even more baroque and unbelievable than simply postulating that the tail was weak and came off from turbulence stress, and the stresses of the spinning power-dive caused other parts of the plane to break.
A combination of a wing joint explosive and the loosening of the vert stabilizer bolts seems to me to fit all available info.The NTSB released pictures of of the vertical stabilizer and it's mounting points. All of the bolts were still in the brackets.
Check this thread: NTSB Photos of Tail of AA-587 Plane. (Lots of images) for pictures and discussion. The photos might not show in the main article, but check post #23 for them if they don't show in the main article.