National Transportation Safety Board Chair Marion C. Blakey, and lead investigator George
Black Jr. addressed the press with information concerning the investigation of American
Airlines Flight 587, at the JFK Holiday Inn, in the Jamaica section of the Queens borough of
New York, Nov. 14, 2001. This is one of two charts used in the presentation. (AP Photo/Robert Spencer)
According to this image of the (supposed) radar tracks of both planes, flight 587 maintained a steady northerly .5 NM separation (sufficient?) along a parallel flight path.
This "wake turbulance" appears (to a know nothing like myself) to be a localized event along a flight path (although it's likely that it moves laterally depending on the prevailing winds and also, I've read that it has a tendency to "sink").
It would seem that in this case the less the interval between the aircraft the less likely the scenario becomes.