Posted on 01/07/2002 10:09:49 AM PST by Beach_Babe
New Yorkers who believe they saw American Airlines Flight 587 explode in flames before its tail sheared off have accused crash investigators of ignoring their eyewitness accounts and prematurely ruling out a terrorist attack.
Six witnesses, including a recently retired police lieutenant, an FDNY deputy chief and a former firefighter, have written to the National Transportation Safety Board demanding they be called to testify at a public hearing.
Tom Lynch, 59, a retired firefighter, said he had also spoken to 18 other people who saw the Airbus A300 flying on fire before it crashed into houses in Belle Harbor, Queens, on Nov. 12, killing 265 people.
"The NTSB is not publicly acknowledging the many eyewitness accounts of the in-flight fire or explosion, many from people who are adamant that the fire occurred before any tail or engine breakups," he told The Post.
Lynch, who organized the letter, said he was standing on Rockaway Beach Boulevard when he saw a bright orange ball of flame streaming from the right side of the plane.
Two or three seconds later, he said, he saw a larger eruption of flames consuming the entire right side of the plane's fuselage.
"There were no falling parts until the second explosion of flames - I'll go to my grave with that," he said.
The witnesses said they were surprised NTSB Chairwoman Marion Blakey was able to say, only hours after the crash, that all indications pointed to an accident, rather than a terrorist attack.
"How could that statement be made while the flight-data recorder had not been recovered, the crash-investigation team had not yet showed up and initial eyewitness reports included many accounts of one or two explosions in flight?" Lynch said.
Another witness not involved with Lynch's group, Michael Benjamin, said he saw a huge orange fire engulfing the front third of the plane's right side while he was driving along Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn with his wife and two children.
Benjamin, who works for the Oversight, Analysis and Investigations Committee of the state Assembly, said he had attempted to contact the NTSB but had not received a return call.
Preliminary reports written by the NTSB have not mentioned in-flight explosions, but have focused on air turbulence, the composite materials used to build the jet's vertical tail, and sudden rudder movements.
An NTSB spokesman said more than 200 eyewitness accounts had been recorded and were being considered as part of the investigation.
But he said if the NTSB decided to conduct a public hearing, it would most likely seek opinions from air-safety and aeronautical-design experts rather than witnesses.
The people who signed the letter, in addition to Lynch, are retired NYPD Officer James Conrad, FDNY Deputy Chief Peter Hayden, retired transit cop Richard Kvies, sales manager John Power and food-services manager Ellie Scholfield.
In my opinion, they WOULD want to cover it up at that time due to the failing of the airline industry.
They had already given the airlines 18 billion, and yet, people still weren't flying.
A terrorist act, just prior to Thanksgiving
and Christmas would have cut the industry off at the knees.
Rather than trying to get inside the mindset of the NTSB and FBI, why not try to look at the evidence? Here are a bunch of witnesses, who are swearing up and down that tehy saw explosions from the plane before it went down. What did they see, and how openly are their testimonies being received by the approporate federal agencies?
I think economics had a great deal to do with it but I also believe that we had already decide that we would go after Afghanistan because they were and easy target and really could not defend themselves against our strength.
Who know the saboteurs might have been from a country that would be better able to fight us and our weakness in that area would make it a difficult and embarrassing attempt.
After all we have expended in Afghanistan I seriously doubt we could militarily keep any rouge state from doing anything especially the Chinese or N. Koreans.
September 11th caught us completely by surprise. Hence, no one blamed the government for their inability to protect us. However, after 9/11, the public would have been pretty pissed off if the terrorists were able to destroy another plane when supposedly we were on high alert and our military was up there looking after us.
The occurence of another successful terrorist attack on an airliner in this country would have killed off air traffic for a long time and would have been the death knell of several airlines. It doesn't really matter what caused the crash of 587. The government WON'T let it be determined to be terrorist connected.
There have always been accidents in the air. Travellers have come to live with these odds, especially when they understand the overall safety record of air travel as opposed to just getting in your car and driving to the mall. Most of us find this risk acceptable.
If, however 587 and 800 were even randomly targeted by terrorists and the Feds admit so, then they must also admit, at least tacitly, that they cannot make air travel safe. This would cripple multiple economic segments.
It is interesting to note that in the days leading up to the Flt 587 downing Ridge was all over the tube telling us to be extra vigilant, something is coming. Well, something did come and within hours they were assuring us that it was nothing more than a tragic accident.
Also interesing is the lack of an order from the feds grounding every one of the hundreds of other Airbus 300s in active service in the US. If, as they want us to believe, the crash was due to some structural problem then it would be reckless in the extreme not to keep the rest of them on the tarmac. Remember, after the Concorde crash it was a year before another one took off.
You mean like from a shoe-bomber, perhaps from inside one of the rear lavatories instead of foolishly trying to ignite them from his seat?
-PJ
President Bush,
I hope you never
lie to me.
Every expert, historian, and media pundit said that the Afghan Mujahadeen would put up a furious fight, we would be there for YEARS, and we would endure horrendous losses in the most rugged terrain in the world and at the start of the brutal winter season. Three weeks in, every major newspaper said we were in a "quagmire."
You're the only flake I've seen say that Afghanistan was an "easy target." Of course, you CAN make that case after the U.S. kicked the Taliban's butt.
Who know the saboteurs might have been from a country that would be better able to fight us and our weakness in that area would make it a difficult and embarrassing attempt.
What nation would that be, right now? U.S. bombing capability has scared the hell out of every one of our foes, especially those in the Middle East. Why do you think they've been so quiet? Why do you think Hussein has limited himself to one pitiful little outburst against the U.S. and Britain since the Taliban were buried?
Sometimes, it appears that some on this forum, in their anti-American zeal, would actually welcome an American defeat.
If it came out that one of Mohammed's boys had anything to do with it, there would have been muzzies swinging from the streetlights -- that's why.
There was no alledging that the A/C went into some kind of uncontrolled dive, and thus exceded design limits and caused the departure. The radar data doesn't show that, and the A/C wasn't at high enough altitude to get up enough speed anyway.
As far as I'm concerned, the vertical could easily have "folded" in one direction, as the data apparently shows, allowing the aircraft to wildly yaw one way. That caused gyroscopic and air loads on the engines which wrenched them from the A/C. That results in fire, when the huge fuel lines are broken. Then the aircraft yaws the other direction, the vertical flops over the other way, and it is then ripped off the A/C and the witnesses see it.
The bottom line is, it's just too easy to find the physical data when you have a real explosion in the aircraft. I still hold out the idea that there might have been an explosion and coverup in Flight 800, since that is a much more controversial situation, and only parts of the A/C were picked up after having been drenched in the ocean.
But this one? Just an accident. Sxxxt happens.
How'd a shoe bomber get into the loo within a minute after the A/C broke ground, get his shoes off, and ignite them soo quickly? Hey! The aircraft crashed and burned along with some houses in the area. You'd think there might be a little damage from the impact that might rip aluminum "up", and a bit of fire damage?
I'm only surprized that the aircraft was in such a large chunk instead of little pieces. Which proves that it was not under some kind of large energy aerodynamic situation like a high speed dive.
More proof that the tail didn't come off because of air-loads. It came off for structural problems.
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