Al Qaeda Takes Responsibility for Downing Flight AA-587

Northeast Intelligence Network ^ | Jun 3,2004

[Publius6961]

Guess this puts the NTSB out of business.

Are arab/muslims all morons? or do they just act that way?

[Publius6961]

Psst.. it's an international project. Would you believe that Airbus are being built in the US?

Really? Where?

I am not holding my breath for an answer...

[AmericanChef]

Oh, heck, if they'd done this one, they surely would've taken credit for it sooner, to add to the existing 9-11 panic and impress their other terrorist buddies.

[TomGuy]

But there was a guy with a missile theory, for 587. I'll look for it.

See post 59 from Newsmax.

[wtc911]

Thanks for finding that.

[MoodyBlu]

Greetings!

I don't know how much you follow the aircraft crash threads that pop up here, so if this is a first time, whacko theories abound.

Some people just cannot accept that at times things break. There was an article in USA Today (probably elsewhere as well) this past Tuesday that talked about the tail of AAL587 and the hard rudder movements that could have been the prime cause of the tail failure.

Thanks for your reasoned input.

MoodyBlu
Air Traffic Controller
Recreational pilot

[COEXERJ145]

An Al-Qaeda website isn't exactly the most reputable news source. Of course a lot of people here think every plane crash is an act of terrorism so this will just reinforce their beliefs.

[ARCADIA]

...the First Officer at the controls, incorrectly implimented violent hard rudder movements - side to side rapidly.

Why would anyone design an aircraft with a rudder that can move at one level of stress and a rudder actuator that is designed to easily exceed the rudders maximum stress level?

There are limits, and the crew can destroy the aircraft through wrongful manipulation of the controls; but this aircraft was traveling at relatively low speeds, and performing a maneuver, that no matter how ill advised, was something that was actually taught and practiced as a routine part of their training regimen. The frame should not have failed, and if it failed, it was because something was wrong with that particular aircraft.

[ARCADIA]

Why haven't they named their martyr?

A clerk who ships four improperly heat treated (or tampered) bolts to an AA maintenance facility need not martyr himself to create this disaster.

[wita]

Doesn't matter, I still don't like em. Too noisy inside, sounds like you are inside the bowels of the aircraft when the flaps and gear come down. Then there is the video of the one taking out the trees, when the computer said land and the pilot didn't want to. Yea, I know that has been fixed, but I still don't like fly by wire. Guess I'll just have to get used to it, because virtually everything is fly by wire.

[wtc911]

"There was an article in USA Today (probably elsewhere as well) this past Tuesday that talked about the tail of AAL587 and the hard rudder movements that could have been the prime cause of the tail failure."

You fail to peport that the NTSB report specifically said that the potential problem in the tail assembly did not contribute to the crash. They could not have been more clear.

"Some people just cannot accept that at times things break" "Whacko theories abound"

Let's all ignore the eyewitness accounts rendered by retired FDNY and retired NYPD (see post 59) members who live in Belle Harbor and saw the event up close. We all know how unreliable those slackers are.

[TheBattman]

When they share plausible evidence for how they were able to carry out this attack - details please - then I will believe them....

But I'm not saying they couldn't have pulled it off - they very well may have.

[COEXERJ145]

For those who say it is impossible to over stress the rudder and vertical fin enough to cause it to break off, there is something that needs to be remembered about that particular aircraft. N14053 suffered tail damage during a hard landing years before her loss. If it was not properly repaired, the over time the normal operating stress could have weakened the vertical fin causing it to break off when subjected to extremely high levels of stress.

[r9etb]

I heard that A-Q also took credit for the overflowing toilet in the bathroom here at work. It was certainly terrifying....

[r9etb]

From the pictures I saw, theris NO WAY fatigue took that tail off.

Is it proper to speak of "fatigue" in a composite structure, in the same way you would of a metal one? FWIW, the most likely failure scenario -- the initial sharp rudder movements causing an already weakened composite tail mounting assembly to snap -- is reasonable. We know the tail did snap off (and was not blown off by a bomb) very early in timeline, and I think everything else can be tied to it.

As Freud said, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

[COBOL2Java]

Of course, since al Quaida operates outside of time and logic, let us not forget their involvement in the Ice Age, manipulating the climate and thereby terrorizing "infidel" rodents...

[Tommyjo]

Apologies. I was getting mixed up with proposals and US component parts manufacturers. The US involvement in Airbus products is high. With the A380 it is quite substantial with the Witchita facility involved in the A380 joint-wing design. Airbus spends more money with suppliers in the U.S. than in any other country. A California firms builds the composite tail structure on the A380 before its shipment to Europe. The Airbus consortium had serious visions about setting up an assembly plant in the US:

Link

[CJ Wolf]

"I don't believe Al Qaeda was behind this for a second."

I know they were.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

What's tinfoil about this story?

It's time people realized the threat is real and the enemy determined.

If it looks like terrorism, and it smells like terrorism, and it acts like terrorism...