The airlines simply have too much to lose; uncle sam already gave 15 billion and wants to tighten the purse strings. Not to mention the public fear factor.
1. He won't bid the Airbus. Says the French computer will override the Captain in extreme situations and will not allow you to fly out of extreme danger situations.
2. The pin that holds the rudder on is made of a plastic composite. It was done instead of aluminum because it is lighter weight and just as strong. However, Captain says, the failure of such material is poorly understood. It can degenerate from UV light, hence it can only be painted white. It can go fine for five years or so and then suddenly go from 99% strength to 20% without warning.
3. Most American Airline airbus planes are flying from NY to the Islands because they can haul large cargo packages and are money makers on those routes even without passenger loads. They aren't flying many on any other routes.
4. The planes that were recently retired from AA fleet due to cutting routes were Boeing planes that were scheduled for retirement in the next couple years anyway, but could be brought back to replace airbus planes if AA grounds the airbus fleet.
5. He conjectures that the rudder started to come loose from failure of the Von epoxy (whatever I can't remember) material of the pin, and it was the rudder flapping that causes the airframe shudder, not wake turbulence. The torque of the flapping rudder caused the plane to veer back and forth to the point that the engines came loose and one maybe took a wing with it.
When the Captain tried to make the drastic maneuvers necessary to regain a semblance of control, the French computer overrode him.
What is more likely....
1) The Port Side Engine seperating....
..or..
2) The Port Side Wing seperating.......as was reported by many eyes on the skies....
.......just curious.....
The NTSB's job is TO PROVE WHY ITS SAFE TO FLY.
If they need help, the FBI and CIA are there to assist. The real potential of a catastrophic economic collapse due to airliners falling from the sky is a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY.
Truth is always sacrificed in the name of National Security.
That's the answer to this and future airliner 'accidents'.
Pilots are taught this maneuver as part of training. If memory serves, you need about 1000-1500 feet to recover properly. During this, you are feeling about 4G's. That should be nothing for the average commercial pilot. The only problem would be if there was no fin. Without a rudder, it's near impossible to recover from a spiral dive. The only way you lose rudder control, is if you lose the controls (electronics on an A300) or if you have no vertical fin.
The story so far, as far as I know, is that there was minor wake turbulence after takeoff, the fin hit the water shortly after that, one engine fell off shortly after, and then the aircraft hit the ground in Queens. These things are built to withstand minor turbulence, and spiral dives. In my mind, there's two ways this could have happened, mechanical sabotage, or the wake turbulence caused it. Which is quite plausable.
I'll use an example of a Cessna 172 (small aircraft, approximately a 40 foot wingspan) taking off immediately after a Boeing 747. The wingtip vortices coming off the ends of the wings on the 747 are large, think of horizontal tornadoes, spinning in opposite directions. If there's no crosswind, the disturbed air will stay disturbed for a while. If the next aircraft was a 747, it would be fine, as it's wings are built to handle the stresses of taking off in high winds, but our little Cessna, holding short on the taxiway, will get it's wings ripped off after only 3 or 4 seconds in the air. The pilot will experience extreme buffetting before he hits the ground again, possibly belly up.
I know this will bring all you conspiracy theorists down, but wake turbulence could be the answer. If the aircraft taking off ahead of the A300 was larger than it by more than, say 20 feet of wingspan, there would be enough wake turbulence to seal the fate of the flight. In the end, this is a judgement call on behalf of the pilot, as he could've asked for a FOD run to waste time, and allow the vortices to clear.