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

[Rome2000]

Fom yeterdays USA Today:

A career Washington bureaucrat and lobbyist, [Marion Blakey] was sworn in as the NTSB's chairwoman Sept. 26, barely 2 weeks after terrorists brought down four passenger jets.

So far, Peter Goelz, who formerly held the NTSB's No. 2 post, and others give her high marks. Blakey handled this week's public briefings with aplomb. She assured the public that the crash was an ...

[Rome2000]

This is without a doubt the most outlandish sentence I have ever seen in a an American newspaper.

"So far, Peter Goelz, who formerly held the NTSB's No. 2 post, and others give her high marks. Blakey handled this week's public briefings with aplomb. She assured the public that the crash was an an accident and not an act of terrorism"

[ZDaphne]

Love "Jalalabad" too!! Kindred spirit? How do you feel about gladiola? Just a little humor on a very serious thread tonight.

[Rome2000]

The weird thing is that USA today makes you pay $1.50 to see the end of that sentence. Strange how they cut it off right at that point in their free archive section.

[nicmarlo]

"Strange how they cut it off right at that point in their free archive section."

Subliminal messages? English-speaking people know that "an" precedes a vowel. And "accident" is what we keeping hearing. Yet, they probably also know many people are truly wondering it was an accident.

[ladyinred]

No flames, I see no reason for all of the flames on this subject! However, the people you are referring to have talked, they have not remained silent at all. In fact, recently a large group of those who say they saw the missile took out a full page ad in USA Today.

[Western Phil]

We have a plane that has a lousy safety record

Fatal Accident due to Mechanical Failure would be First for Airbus

[Rokke]

Listen to the Art Bell show lately? There's "eyewitnesses" on that show who claim to have had multiple affairs with aliens. Should I believe them too? Sorry, but my original statement stands. The statement that "Hundreds of witnesses saw that missile, " with respect to TWA 800 is a lie. Please note that nobody has been able to prove otherwise. Call me a fool, but even this fool can recognize a lie when he sees one. What does that make you?

[ladyinred]

I have read the same thing about the witnesses, and I am sure most of us here have, so he is not lying. The last story I read was about the ad in the paper, and that was reported in the media.
I saw a copy of the ad in fact, and if you really are interested, I am sure you can search it out.

What is it about this subject that is generating so much animosity? This war of words has been going on since a few minutes after the crash earlier in the week. I don't get it!

[El Gato]

Now that picutre, a higher resolution version of one on the NTSB web site, does show delamination at one attachment point. The question still remains: was the delamination present before the event, and the cause of it, or is it a result of overstress caused by some other event? Only one of the attachment points seems to have delaminated, while the other one broke off more or less cleanly. I would say that could be evidence of a preexisting fault, but not definitive proof. Maybe that attachment point sufferred a twisting moment as well as a sideways force. I believe that's the aft most attachment point. If it is, I could see a twisting motion if the forward attachment points broke first, which could have peeled the matrix apart that way. Still it is evidence of delamination.

Even before seeing this I was leaning toward the pre-existing fault scenario, and this lends it more weight, but does not yet prove it.

[Twodees]

Yep, that one cracked me up. Spell check will slip some funny stuff in on you sometimes. Good work with the transcription, though. I appreciate your posting it.

[Alabama_Wild_Man]

"Puff of Smoke" - - - Yep....sounds like a "Mechanical Failure" to me !! !! !!

Bombed Bumb !! !! !!

[usconservative]

From the report: In 13 of the 14 previous crashes, crew error was identified as the main factor.

Right. Blame the crew, not the plane. Sorry, I don't buy it. If the Airbus planes were so good, why have United, American, Delta etc.. stopped buying them and switched almost exclusively to Boeing's narrow-body series?

Hmmmm.....

[Blueflag]

"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.

I disagree- not in a well-coordinated turn.

"Also, no amount of exterior damage should stop the FDR and CVR."

If the A300 loses both engines, it lose both generators (I believe). This would account for their sudden shut down in the air. "pingers" run on batteries. Also, I thought the CVR did operate on batteries, but not the FDR (in the event of electrical failure.

PErhaps the bright folks at Airbus Industries were silly enough to put a circuit breaker in the path of the FDR and the 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,

This to me was the loss of the VS that caused the loss of control, and the lack of a valid data link to the FDR from the rudder prior to loss of power.

and caused the aircraft to break apart due to air load."

Near as I can read, only major pieces to depart the airframe wer the VS, part of a wingtip and both engines. All other pieces were in the impact area.

[Rokke]

Please go back to post #91. The lie in question concerns the statement "Hundreds of witnesses saw that missile." That statement is a lie, and cannot be supported. The ad in the Washington Times contained 7 witness statements describing something that could have been a missile. 7 does not equal hundreds. The ad says hundreds saw it, but offers no proof.

I think the animosity in these threads comes from two opposing viewpoints. One viewpoint essentially trusts the investigating government agencies, and the other assumes the investigating government agencies consistently lie. It is a debate that has been going on since JFK was shot and probably before. I'm sure it will continue for decades to come.

[Silvertip]

The fact that multiple, independent, reliable, EYEWITNESSES, interviewed minutes after the crash while the incident is still fresh in their minds, and who live under the flightpath and see these planes all day and all night long, in every conceivable condition of weather, light, pilot skill, chance, and variable report an explosion and fire (being so specific (and using correct terminology) as to say at the "root of the wing") are now just a part of forgotten history is tantamount to the criminality and success of the USGOV.

800 required a CIA cartoon, excuse me, TWO cartoons. Learning fromn their past success, 587 won't even require that.