Sabotage Explains Flight 587 Crash, Says Expert

newsmax ^ | Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2001 | Dave Eberhart,

[classygreeneyedblonde]

I hope they find out what really happened

[hole_n_one]

During the night, a terrorist saboteur disguised as a ground crew mechanic reached up in the back of the left jet engine of the American Airlines Airbus and cut the hydraulic line going to the thrust reverser actuator and the control safety sensor lines.

I would think that any significant loss of hydraulic pressure to any system would have been caught during the pre-flight check.

[inflorida]

Ok, maybe I need to put on my tin foil hat but...
I have felt since day one that this crash was not an 'accident'.
Move along folks...nothing to see.

[KC_for_Freedom]

I don't think this will hold up,
The tampered hose would be discovered in the wreakage
I think a partial thrust reversal would be evident to the trained crew. It makes one heck of a roar.
Unsaid in the scenario is a massive cover up similar to the TWA 800 fiasco. This may have occurred, but the adults are back in the white house and this president does not seem like the type to lie to the American Public.

[VOA]

If the left engine thrust reverser had either partially or completely actuated
during flight, it would cause the plane to go into a flat spin to the left.

I'm no aviation professional...but I do remember seeing a story for maybe 5 years or so ago
in which it was speculated that a jetliner was brought down someplace in South America...and it
was thought the cause was that a thrust reverser had been deployed during takeoff
due to a signal from a cell-phone aboard the plane.

I don't know if that is even possibe...if it were, I'd think there would be planes falling
out of the sky all the time!

[Jeff F]

The most obvious problem with this scenario is the complete lack of eyewitness corroboration. The plan was flying in NYC and was observed by many people. No one has reported anything like this spectacular high-speed flat spin.

[jlogajan]

Wake Turbulence Discounted

Ha ha ha. It is an inconvenient fact that he brushes away as a coincidence.

[Kenyon]

Isn't it odd that two of the most unusual air crashes in memory involved planes that took off from Kennedy?

[Slyfox]

A witness interviewed after the crash said that the tail edge was so straight
that it looked as if someone had loosened a few bolts prior to take off.

[Wissa]

People aren't used to seeing planes spinning like frisbees. If what you're seeing doesn't fit into your preconception of reality, your mind does its own gymnastics to try to make sense of it all. There were eyewitnesses that said the left engine came off first, and others that said the right engine came off first. That would fit in with the author's view that the plane was spinning.... or it could also fit with the eyewitnesses not knowing what the heck they saw.

[GretchenEE]

I am just kicking myself because I received an alert from The Elijah List (a Christian ministry) shortly after this plane went down (I'm still looking for the copy but haven't found it yet), in which the author of that issue said he believed that God showed him right before this plane went down that there would be an act of sabotage on a plane involving the hydraulics or fuel line or something similar. Not being an engineer or even remotely familiar with how engines and planes work, I can't remember it rightly. I will keep looking. Even before I received that Email alert, my gut sense was sabotage brought this plane down.

[John H K]

Thrust reverser actuation is obvious on both the flight data recorder and by inspecting an engine after a crash. No evidence of a thrust reverser actuation was found.

[copycat]

They are getting closer. This scenario, unfortunately, does not adress the fact that dozens of witnesses, including a retired LEO and firefighter, saw not one, but two explosions before the plane began to break up...as reported here.

IMHO, the sabotage angle is correct, and the events after the engine problem are correct...the sideways turning of the craft took the tail off. However, I believe the two "rattles" heard on the CVR correspond to the two expolsions seen by eyewitnesses. I believe explosives were planted inside the wing, near the junction to the plane.

[Ronin]

I hope they do too. But even if they do, the chances of us little people learning the truth are not too good.

[sinkspur]

I received an alert from The Elijah List (a Christian ministry) shortly after this plane went down (I'm still looking for the copy but haven't found it yet), in which the author of that issue said he believed that God showed him right before this plane went down that there would be an act of sabotage on a plane involving the hydraulics or fuel line or something similar.

And the fact that you received an e-mail AFTER the crash didn't trigger your bullshit meter?

Please. God gave you a brain. Use it.

[jlogajan]

Ouch! ha ha

[okie01]

"I don't think this will hold up, The tampered hose would be discovered in the wreakage"

Newsmax's expert, Marshall Smith, is evidently unfamiliar with some of the A-300 features, as well.

From an earlier thread, which included A-300 pilots and an aircraft engineer with a company who manufactures nacelles, we discovered that any damage to the hydraulics would make it impossible to deploy the thrust reversers -- the exact opposite of what the expert contends.

Moreover, the A-300 edition that American flies is not "fly by wire". This controversial approach was first employed on the A-320.

Let's put it this way: if it was sabotage, it had nothing to do with the thrust reversers.

[sinkspur]

There were eyewitnesses that said the left engine came off first, and others that said the right engine came off first.

And this doesn't trigger your bullshit meter, either?

Come on, people. Eyewitness testimony, unless it is captured IMMEDIATELY after a crash is notoriously unreliable.

Your post proves it.

[sinkspur]

Thrust reverser actuation is obvious on both the flight data recorder and by inspecting an engine after a crash. No evidence of a thrust reverser actuation was found.

John. You're correct, of course.

But the government covered it up!

Get with the conspiracy, man. Rationality has NO place when a juicy opportunity to gin up a cover-up presents itself.

If Michael Rivero hadn't been kicked off Free Republic, we'd have seen fifteen threads on this foolishness by now.

[Wissa]

Okay, so YOU come up with a plausible explanation of what happened. This is the one theory that I've seen that passes more of the "smell test" than the other speculations I've seen.