Posted on 11/17/2001 10:58:21 AM PST by 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
Some people believe everything our gubmint tells us.
The apparent accident that brought another round of grief to Rockaway at the beginning of this week has once again brought those who firmly believe in the conspiracy theory of life out of the woodwork. And, while anything is possible, and that includes the possibility that the plane was sabotaged, the majority of Rockaway residents, The Wave included, now believe that this was indeed a tragic accident. That is obviously not the opinion of everyone who lives on the peninsula, and it is certainly not the opinion of many of those with access to Internet bulletin boards. On the AOL News site, there were several "theories" about the crash. One held that Bullock’s Texaco Station, where one of the plane’s engines fell, is, in fact, a CIA storage area and that the CIA put that engine there to make it look like it had come from the plane. Another holds that Osama crashed the plane into Rockaway in retaliation for the "You can kiss my Rockaway Irish Ass" comment made by a fireman named Moran at the Concert for New York last month. A caller to The Wave on Wednesday morning claimed that he was a Lebanese Christian who was in on a plot dictated by Yassir Arafat, who was in New York City at the time. The caller claims that Arafat’s people sabotaged the plane specifically to fall on Rockaway as a punishment for its "Jewish residents". Another visitor who came to The Wave’s offices that day claims to know an eyewitness who saw a missile or other object chasing the plane down the peninsula. Still another Internet correspondent believes that aliens downed the plane because it was flying over an "Area 51" secret base here on Rockaway.
Even "mainstream" publications such as The New York Post keep the theory alive. A recent column in that paper headlined the fact that "Neighbors Scoff at Theory Crash Was An Accident." It starts off by saying, "people who live around Rockaway’s own Ground Zero are not swallowing the story that this was an accident." I do not know who they have been talking with, but the majority of those we talk with do believe now that the crash was an accident. Tragedy always brings the feelings that some sort of conspiracy on the part of the government or of the "powers that be" has somehow caused the tragedy. The fact is, accidents happen and in this particular case, we think that one happened to Rockaway.
and
Others voiced the opinion that the fact that the devastation was as a result of an accident rather than another terrorist attack somehow made them feel better.
BTW Many people heard the man too.
Isn't it a wee bit odd that the last three major (lots of fatalities) air crashes in the United States have originated in New York??? TWA 800, EgyptAir 990, and now this one.And, now that we know that a) Suicidal hijackers, and b) Cockpit invasion are part of Osama's playbook, who thinks EgyptAir 900 was uncommanded thrust reverser deployment? The cockpit invasion/suicide thing was a little outlandish at the time, and now? Yet here, under explicit threat of more planes falling out of the sky, with a plane that comes apart in midair, with witnesses seeing and hearing evidence of an explosion, we are supposed to put Osama last on the list of possibilities? Anyone want to bet all other AB300 vert stabs are rock-solid?
It's their SOP, instill fear, ask for more money, and admit "nuthink."
I hope you don't have the impression that I disbelieve they eyewitness accounts. I do, especially for the reasons you pointed out here. All I was referring to in my earlier post was that a healthy amount of skepticism of the sum total of an eyewitness' account usually proves useful in keeping an objective perspective. I never meant to imply or insinuate that one should outright dismiss an eyewitness. No one person can recall every detail accurately. But the sum total of all eyewitnesses lends more credibility when the accounts are generally similar. And that is not to say I would dismiss a single eyewitness account, either, simply because it was the sole witness.
I appreciate the fact that you even took the time to type that transcript. I could figure out any misspelled words. This is not an English class.
"The Wave" believes that? Based on what?! Have they seen the videos? Have they seen tests for residue inside and outside the plane? Do they know the background of all the people who serviced the plane before its flight? Until these kind of data are made available, how can _anyone_ come to a firm conclusion?
Modern media...
Mark W.
The French engineers I've work with are just as competent as Boeing's chicken littles that worry about every what if. Structural engineers are a conservative lot so it would take exceptional circumstances for the stabilizer to fall off from wake turbulence.
I do believe Mike Moran said "Royal Irish Ass", which would be the term used by folks from "the old country", aka: Ireland.
I don't know if the error made by The Wave was intentional or not.
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