Break-up of airliner is captured on security film

Electronic Telegraph ^ | November 18, 2001 | By Charles Laurence in New York

[js1138]

and the film has been sent to FBI laboratories for enhancement.

Why not just commission an animation from the CIA?

[michaelje]

Quick jlogajan, someone yell "tin foil hat" before its too late !

[Solson]

You're doing well enough on your own. Keep up with the theories boys...you're making Rivero proud.

[wita]

My thoughts exactly, and all of them curiously unexplained, with no survivors. Anyone want to come up with another airport with so many curious crashes?

[drc43]

"This one has a trail of black smoke on the video as the aircraft went down. "

Incomplete combustion of jet fuel in engine(s) following compressor stall?

[C-Note]

Entirely too many crashes from JFK for it just to be bad luck.

[Map Kernow]

You're doing well enough on your own. Keep up with the theories boys...you're making Rivero proud.

"Theories," buddy? Oh, yeah, that's right...all those naughty, naughty "tinfoil hat conspiracy theories," right?

Well, guess what? The only "theories" I've seen have been coming from your side: "uncontained engine failure," "wake turbulence," "sumpin wrong with the dang vert. stab.," "pilot thumped the dang rudder too hard," etc. No, pal, you fellers seem to have the monopoly on wild theories this time around.

And on smears. But then, we in the "tinfoil hat" crowd have ALWAYS ceded THAT ground to you....

[Protagoras]

I suppose we'll all find out eventually, huh?

Only if there is one.

[rebelsoldier]

Agreed. I can buy one of these things happening to that airplane after less than 2 minutes in flight, but 3 catastrophic events unprecedented in aviation history? No way. Short of an explosive device, the only rational alternative would be mechanical sabotage, a much more dangerous and devious tactic to bring down a plane and kill all of its passengers. The government and the NTSB have focused on the gateways into aircraft by passengers and baggage, and neglected the most vunerable underbelly of all, the aircraft maintenance and service window of terrorist opportunity.

[Map Kernow]

the most vunerable underbelly of all, the aircraft maintenance and service window of terrorist opportunity.

Excellent point. Even the "anti-conspiracy kook" crowd here with all their "I-mean,-it-could-have-happened-that-way-with-enough-torque-and-lateral-G's" mechanical failure theories don't ever want to focus on how a plane could really fail in mid-air on takeoff ascent in those circumstances, unless there was some kind of bad maintenance of the plane. It's at least a reasonable working hypothesis that someone wasn't maintaining that plane properly. Or just maybe that it had been tampered with by the people who were supposed to be maintaining it.

[Map Kernow]

For what it's worth here are some points made by (I'm told by E-mail) a couple of captains flying with Qantas:

1. No plane is going to get caught up in a wake with 1 min, 45 sec between take-offs.

2. There was simply no chance for an "unusual communication" between the pilot and the tower because there is NO communication for the first few minutes of a flight. The pilots have to concentrate on their boards and there's little if anything the tower can tell them that they need to know--or can do anything about. (There's not supposed to be any communication at descent, either, for the same reason. On a related note, she told me of an approach to the Tokyo airport during bad weather. My cousin determined it was too dangerous at the angle/altitude they were at--the approach is "through" tightly packed/built buildings; it's a tight fit.) He and his co-pilot said nothing to the tower--or each other--and simply took the plane up and re-approached. The airline behind them took the hint and went up again. There was no time to say anything to anyone.

3. There was no way the pilot dumped fuel in the bay as some reports claimed. The pilots were too busy trying to get the damned thing in the air. They couldn't swing the plane out, dump fuel, and get back on course in a matter of seconds.

4. Birds are an unlikely problem (and it was mentioned in yesterday's Post that JFK employs a falconer to keep birds away ) . Daphne said at one airport (Brisbane, I think) a certain type of pine tree was planted. In a breeze it produces a low moaning sound that scares away birds. With a stronger wind it sounds so creepy it bothers people.

[t-shirt]

The FBI and NTSB will never show this tape, count on that.

[spiker]

See the excellent Aero-News Network analysis of the AA Flight 587 crash.
Scroll down the page to read the article which has photographs.

Aero-News Network 11/16/01

[Map Kernow]

Thanks for the link!! "Self-induced flutter"? Well, I'm learning new aviation terminology all the time following this case. The piece on the cause of the Flt. 587 disaster at the link you posted was researched, had good data and pictures, was cautiously rather than speculatively and tendentiously written, and amazingly, contained not a single snide remark about "tinfoil hat conspiracy types." Thanks again.