Posted on 11/13/2001 4:39:33 AM PST by TLBSHOW
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
U.S. investigators said on Tuesday initial information from the cockpit voice recorder found in the wreckage of an American Airlines plane indicated Monday's crash was an accident and not sabotage. "The cockpit voice recorder is the biggest information that we have and a quick listen to that last evening in Washington showed nothing that would imply any sort of unusual activity in the cockpit other than the accident sequence," said National Transportation Safety Board spokesman George Black.
Speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America" show, Black said there were no unknown voices in the cockpit before Flight 587 crashed, just two minutes after taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport en route to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.
"There was nothing on the tape that would lead us to believe that it was anything other than an aviation accident," he said, quashing speculation hijackers might have been on board in a repeat of the Sept. 11 aerial attacks on America.
Up to 269 people died in Monday's plane crash in a residential area in the borough of Queens in New York. Of those killed, 251 were passengers and nine were crew on board the plane, while nine people are missing on the ground.
The crash came just two months and one day after two hijacked commercial aircraft were rammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, killing some 4,300 people. Another hijacked plane crashed into a wing of the Pentagon and a fourth went down in Pennsylvania.
In an interview with NBC's "Today" show, Black said the possibility of sabotage could not be ruled out altogether in the case of the American Airlines flight and that the NTSB was cooperating with the FBI.
"We are not going to exclude that possibility until the investigation goes much further than this but right now there is no evidence (of sabotage)," he added.
Black said the distribution of the wreckage over a wide area, including parts in nearby Jamaica Bay, indicated that there might have been a mechanical problem on the plane before it crashed.
"The distribution of the wreckage is unusual. It indicates pieces were coming off the airplane very shortly after take-off," he said.
"To have pieces in the bay and the two engines not located with the fuselage indicates something went seriously wrong very quickly in the flight," he said.
He said the flight data recorder, which has not been found yet, would provide key information and fill in many of the gaps in the investigation.
Investigators will also be looking very closely at the plane's maintenance records and at who was involved in servicing the aircraft, he said.
And the guy with the simulated chicken dinners for the
flight's dinner menu, freely drives across the tarmac and
shoves the entrees aboard... with the help of the flight crew.
Oh... and the baggage; the 1 in 10 that got checked, gets
thrown into the cargo hold by some skinhead part-time
worker.
What PO's me, is when an industry ignores security and
safety concerns for "public relations" and "customer
comfort"; ending up causing billions of dollars of damage
and loss of thousands of lives.......
We have to pay the bill to help "bail them out".
Screw 'em. Let 'em go chapter 11. Put the blame
where the blame belongs.
That would be the Israelis, I believe, and they definitely wouldn't be sharing that with terrorists.
We know it wasn't a bomb because there are no unusual sounds in the cockpit?
Where do they GET these "investigators?"
Mechanical engineer (Formerly at Lockheed Martin) & Licensed Private Pilot.
I was under the impression the PLO was using these against the Israelis.
The explosion in the rear of the aircraft would force the aircraft to rotate in a horizontal motion about the aircraft center of gravity, which is located at the center of the main wings. Think of a row boat oar lock, as you pull back on the oar, you cause the other end of the oar to rotate...the situation occurred with this incident...the explosion, at the rear, cause the nose/engines to rotate and this excessive torque destroyed the engine mountings...
And you don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that a disintigrating engine isn't going to knock the tail off of an airplane. It just doesn't pass the "sniff test". Then again, neither did the official story on TWA 800.
I can hardly wait to see the nifty CIA-produced video they use to explain how engine fragments can cause an aircraft to come apart into such small pieces in mid-air.
"To have pieces in the bay and the two engines not located with the fuselage indicates something went seriously wrong very quickly in the flight," he said.Hmm? An explosion happens very quickly and would have serious consequences. . .He said the flight data recorder, which has not been found yet, would provide key information and fill in many of the gaps in the investigation.
Investigators will also be looking very closely at the plane's maintenance records and at who was involved in servicing the aircraft, he said.
"Oh for crying out loud Charlie, I went and accidentally pushed the engine eject and tail disconnect button"
ROFLMAO!!!
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