Flight 587 Video Shows 'Puff of Smoke' in Sky

Newsmax ^ | November 17, 2001 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[MeekOneGOP]

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2001 11:39 a.m. EST

Flight 587 Video Shows 'Puff of Smoke' in Sky

A second-by-second videotape of the final moments of doomed American Airlines Flight 587 shows a puff of smoke in the sky seconds after it crashed outside New York's JFK Airport Monday, lending credence to eyewitnesses who say the jetliner exploded before slamming into a Rockaway, N.Y., neighborhood.

Though Flight 587 probers have not released the key videotape, shot from a Metropolitan Transportation Authority highway surveillance camera, reporters from New York's Daily News were allowed to view it Friday.

"The tape ... shows a white outline of the jetliner against a clear sky in fairly steep decline," the News reported in Saturday editions. "Seconds later, the outline disappears and the video shows a blurry, white, undefined patch as the plane apparently breaks apart."

Visible in one of the final frames of the sequential videotape is "a puff of white smoke in the sky."

The images of Flight 587's final moments are said to be "very unclear." FBI and NTSB investigators hope to learn more through video enhancement techniques.

On Friday, MTA spokesman Tom Kelly told NewsMax.com that the FBI had turned the videotape over to the NTSB, but apparently both agencies now have copies and continue to analyze them.

Enhancement of the Flight 587 video could confirm the accounts of eyewitnesses like Jackie Powers, who, minutes after the crash, told both ABC News and WABC Radio in New York that she saw "an enormous flash" near the wing on the A-300 Airbus before it dropped from the sky.

"I don't know if it was fire or an explosion," she said. "It appeared that debris fell from the left side [of the plane]. It just plummeted. It had no momentum whatsoever. It just plummeted."

Dozens of other witnesses told various media outlets they saw the jet either explode or catch fire before it crashed.

An explosion would be a problem for NTSB officials, who spent the better part of the last few days trying to sell the idea that the plane's vertical stabilizer snapped off, causing the in-flight breakup, because of "wake turbulence" from a Japan Airlines 747 that had taken off from JFK two minutes earlier.

Independent aviation experts have generally scoffed at the NTSB theory.

"[747 wake turbulence] is not strong enough to be able to break off a tail or to compromise any sort of a normal airplane," said ABC News aviation analyst John Nance on Friday.

"They could turn a little airplane upside down. But especially an A-300, which is a jumbo jet - no way in the world should that ever have any potentially disastrous impact on the aircraft or the tail," he explained.

On Wednesday, an unnamed aviation expert quoted in New York's Newsday said one likely explanation for Flight 587's breakup was a bomb exploding on board. (See: Aviation Expert: Bomb One Likely Cause of Flight 587 Crash.)

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
TWA 800
War on Terrorism

[usconservative]

I'm not an engineer...but wouldn't amount/intensity of wake turbulence be determined by the aerodynamics of a plane...NOT the amount of weight carried within it's hull?

Think "boat." The weight of the boat increases it's wake. The planes weight and density increased with a full compliment of passenger, baggage and fuel. Wings are heavier with a full load of fuel.

It's all about aerodynamics and displacement. A heavier plane (like a heavier boat) displaces more air than a lighter one.

Ever driven behind a semi truck going down the highway? Ever notice that at some distances while driving behind a semi truck you get more of that "rocking your car" motion than you do at other distances?

Ever notice that while passing a truck on the right or left while going down the highway, when you get right along side it with your car's hood about even with the back wheels of the semi-tractor you get almost ZERO wind noise? Then when you go to pass in front of the truck it gets noisier and you have to correct the car because of the wind?

That's turbulence. One jet flying behind another at some distances get the same effect. There's jet wash, turbulence, and jet wake.

You can experience what jet wash, turbulence and wake feels like driving behind a truck, then going to pass. Drive real close behind the truck, and the "wake" the truck produces breaks the air for you. It's real quiet driving down the road closely following a semi. No air noise due to the truck making the wake (displacing air) for you.

If that jet got caught in the wake of a larger 747 in front of it, there might not have been enough air mass to produce enough lift to keep that plane in the air.

That's what jet wake is all about.

[Blueflag]

A mind is a terrible thing. While I wrote "... what the yaw axis is", I meant "...where the yaw axis is" in a tail-less A300 in a dynamic vector environment.

BTW, nice to have some sane members on the thread.

[usconservative]

Air mass meaning not enough DENSITY of the air.

On hot summer days for example, planes have a harder time taking off because the air isn't as DENSE as it is on cooler days.

It's all about air density and lift.

[El Gato]

all I can think of is the a/c got REAL squirrely and the pilot(s) used coordinated control skills BUT THEY DIDN"T KNOW THE VERT WAS GONE! So pushing rudder pedals was useless......they expected the rudder to help, but..... ......'course I can't answer the why of what happened, but I bet if you could have sufficient time to look at all the remains, you could. I'd just wander around looking, muttering, praying, and trying to control my intestinal tract. Poor bastards never had a chance.

From: CNN

But in the last eight seconds recorded by the Flight Data Recorder (FDR), the plane was pushed left, left and right with significant force. Data shows the rudder moved in the opposition directions, probably corrections by the pilot.

After that, the rudder stopped sending usable data, the current head of the NTSB Marion Blakey said. That is also believed to be when the pilots lost control.

The CNN story seems to indicate that the vert stab wasn't quite gone at that point, at least the rudder posistion encoder was still reporting data, and data consistent with the pilots expected reactions to yaw induced by turbulence. Things went all to snot after that though. Indeed, it does appear that the poor bastards didn't have a chance. Fortunately, it was all over quickly, for everyone on board.

[El Gato]

I'd just wander around looking, muttering, praying, and trying to control my intestinal tract.

So would I my friend, then I'd have to put that aside and get down to the analysis. Glad I've never had to do that, and likely never will.

[XpandTheEkonomy]

Re this event and all the others like it: take Deep Throat's advice and follow the money. There's WAY too much money on the line to tell the truth here. The truth would destroy holiday air travel sink several airlines and t-bone the stock market.

The truth would also save lives by forcing the FAA to actually regulate the industry. But at this point the number of innocents killed in the air is still acceptable to EVERYONE. We are happily chugging along toward a busy retail holiday season.

Don't be a party pooper and obsess about the ugly truth. We've got to keep the ekonomy going.

[ValerieUSA]

Turbulance on that nice clear day didn't strike the plane apart. Something solid struck the plane, not a gust of air.

[eno_]

Don't forget that 587 also made a tight turn, finished the turn, and was flying straight and climbing when vert the stab came off. That turn would have loaded the vert stab more than wake turbulence. Also, no amount of exterior damage should stop the FDR and CVR. In fact, you could expect these things to continue operating AFTER impact so they could be located by "pingers" inside them. I think it is more likely that the part of the wing, the engines, and the tail all came off AFTER some other event that caused loss of control, and caused the aircraft to break apart due to air load.

[El Gato]

Now the question: Since when do bombs make a rattling noise? They usually just go KA-BOOM!

Real bombs often go "krack" rather than KA-BOOM. More like a gunshot. especially if it were a strategically posistioned cutting charge. If it was way back in the tail, or on the engine, or even in the baggage compartment, you might not hear it in the cockpit, but would hear the "rattle" as the airframe shuddered. That's not to say there was a bomb, just that it might not be heard in the cockpit if there was one.

Which brings up a question. Has anyone seen a picture of, or read a description of the condition and/or whereabouts of the horizontal stabiliser?

[eno_]

No, nothing, at least nothing massive, hit the plane. Yet six carbon fiber lugs that could lift a house snapped at the same instant. The engines are held on pretty good, too. And they came down intact and appernently with no malfunctions. They were not hit by anything. Aerodynamic forces of a plane "flying" in a way it was very much not meant to do is what caused these parts to be torn off.

[okie01]

"tell me why it doesn't look like something exploded causing those darkened rounded portions?"

Black is the natural color of the composite material. It is made up of carbon fibers.

The rest of the structure has been painted...

[Concentrate]

The general public is already removing this crash from their memory. They were told, really, "Nothing to see here."

It doesn't change my position a bit, since I think most of the capital cities in the ME, not to mention Mecca and Medina, should have been nukesd in September, anyway.

[VOA]

If that jet got caught in the wake of a larger 747 in front of it, there might not
have been enough air mass to produce enough lift to keep that plane in the air.

usconservative,
You should call the NTSB and tell them that that spokes-lady needs to speak this
passage OUT LOUD. I think that's an angle that our guvmint folks haven't
brought to public consciousness.

Of course, that might freak out some folks...thinking that every time they take off
there is a possiblity of this happening, even if the tail fin doesn't snap off.

As for your boat analogy...my tired brain had been stumbling in that direction.
You focused the analysis quite well.

[Concentrate]

Nukesd = nuked, of course.

[garycooper]

Maybe these mechanical failures happened after an intentional explosion, when the piolts lost control of the plane. An out of control plane could fall apart, no?

[MeekOneGOP]

Flight 587 shows a puff of smoke in the sky seconds after it crashed outside New York.

NO KIDDING!!!! REALLY - a puff of smoke AFTER it crashed. Wow, now thats news /sarcasm

LOL! Amazin', huh???

[MeekOneGOP]

Besides, if you haven't noticed, we don't have liars in the Whitehouse any more!

Oh, yeah! I've noticed character quality in GWB since I voted for him for governor in our fair state!

I agree with your post completely, friend! ;-)

[XpandTheEkonomy]

Please do the math. Calculate the odds. JFK is the source of unexplained EgyptAir crash -- pilot who took over the cockpit and aimed the plane into the ground -- we now can assume this Egyptian man was al-queda. JFK is the source of SwissAir flight blown out of the sky without explanation over Nova Scotia. JFK is the source of TWA 800. JFK is the source of 587.

I guess I'm a "conspiracy nutcase goofball" because I believe in statistics. The stats move a logical mind to reasonable conclusions. Why don't you hire yourself a statistician and compute the exact odds of FOUR "unexplained" catastrophes sourced from the same airport in this time frame.

If it ends up past 1 in a billion will you be convinced?

I doubt it. You're bugged by the conspiracy nutcases? I'm bugged by the "gotta have it on video" crowd. If Woodward & Bernstein hadn't actually found the smoking gun and Nixon had slipped out of the noose I'm sure they'd be on your long list of "nutcases". In other words if they didn't get the crime on tape and you can't see it with your own 2 eyes then it didn't happen.

If the glove don't fit you must acquit.

[MeekOneGOP]

The Coast Guard needs to look for any Luxury Yachts roaming the bay that day...sounds like a particle beam weapon.....

particle beam weapon

Huh? Not being a technical wizard, you shot a little over my head there. Can you elaborate a little bit, friend???

Thanks!

[cdw19390]

We know there lying, they know they are lying, next comes denying. So what! My 401 k has come back about 10% let the bastards lie. When/if they told the truth we would pay for it.Stocks would plummet. They are all the same. Bush is just a little better "new world Order" guy. I am getting a little long of tooth, and my kids did not seem to give a damn, for the last miserable 8 years with the rapist. So Now I dont care, as they say "I got mines!" Quack it.