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The crash of Flight 587 was the second deadliest aviation disaster in US history, but got relatively scant media attention in the weeks and months that followed. How could they say it was an accident before the flight data recorder was recovered and before the crash investigation team even showed up?

They float ideas, hoping one catches on: first they said it might be a flock of birds … then we heard wake turbulence … then it was a composite material … and now pilot error. They’d better come up with something good because that tail just didn’t fall off.

BUMP

Oh, wait until the gummit goon squads show up on this thread and that's exactly one of the ideas they'll push.

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

They float ideas, hoping one catches on: first they said it might be a flock of birds … then we heard wake turbulence … then it was a composite material … and now pilot error. They’d better come up with something good because that tail just didn’t fall off.

I don't know.....TWA 800 managed to spontaneously combust all by itself!

On the very day this happened, I explained it much better than the Government ever has or ever will.

I said then, and I quote

"When they heard that there were six Muslims aboard, the tail and both engines got off of the plane. The other passengers would have left too, but they were buckled down in their seat belts."

because that tail just didn’t fall off.

And your evidence is?

Actually, since the Airbus tail is a composite structure, in which it is impossible to detect abnormalities, it wouldn't surprise me in the least that it "just fell off".

Carbon fiber is some neat stuff. But there are some big problems with it in airplanes. Things like contamination between layers can cause failures, and the problem cannot be found without testing the part by breaking it.

I'll join the conspiracy train with regard to TWA800 with all the witnesses who saw a missle. But this one looks easy. Tail fell off. Plane crashed. oops.

The fact that they've found other Airbus tails that have delamination problems ought to scare you more about a coverup. A coverup about unsafe French airplanes. Like the coverup of the Boeing 737 rudder problem that caused three crashes, where they recently had a quiet replacement of some rudder control parts and didn't connect it with any previous crashes. Sure.

> I'll join the conspiracy train ....

I won't, but I will point out a connundrum. The leading apparent cause of this accident is the separation of the vertical tail.

Either this accident wasn't the result of that, or the NTSB and FAA are failing to loudly warn operators of Airbuses of a dangerously surprising risk. If you are “concerned” about this accident investigation, you have reason to be.

The Airbus has long been famous (notorious, perhaps) for it's parental fly-by-wire control laws that (everyone thought) went so far in keeping the flight in the envelope, and protecting the airframe from overstress, that the plane would crash rather than allow the pilot to bend it trying to save it.

The 1988 A320 airshow crash may not have been an example of this, but brought the issue to the forefront.

I have since read (and prior to AA587), that some pilots take questionable advantage of this. Reportedly, they perform some takeoffs by firewalling the throttles and pulling the yoke all the way back into their laps, counting on the computers to keep them in the envelope.

As a pilot myself, I have trouble accepting that another pilot would do that, but if true, it would confirm what I’ve long suspected, which is that some pilots, prior to AA587, assumed that nothing they could do with the controls (other than flying into terrain) could bend, much less break, an Airbus.

Airbus has now admitted that this is not true, but is hardly yelling it from the top of the Effiel Tower (nor is the NTSB, nor is the FAA). If you don’t read Aviation Week cover-to-cover, you might yet not know. Indeed, it would seem that rudder caution needs to be emphasized on all large a/c types, and not just Airbus.

With what we now know, it was just a matter of time before a crew literally "kicked the tail off" an Airbus.

As to whether or not that describes what happened to AA587 ... we now return you to your regularly scheduled internet debate.

I saw a photograph, purportedly of the tail of the aircraft, in a building after it had been recovered. The "break" in the forward attachment ring was clearly visible.

While I'm not an "engineer", I was trained as an aircraft mechanic and through various racing endeavors have worked with composite materials.

The "break" in the photograph was definitly not from a tension force, or from any other force that was not assisted by a horizontal "cut" or fracture prior to it's departing the aircraft. This failure was a clean cut type of seperation, not the ripped and distorted failure that any person with any experience with composites would expect to find.

As to how the cut happened, I have some ideas, and some of them involve sabotage.

What I do know is that the NTSB and the law enforcement agencies are pissing on our legs and telling us it's raining.

Can someone please tell me how yet another airline disaster/terrorist-related coverup can possibly help our nation in any way? Is the NTSB trying to give the impression that air travel is safe or are other government agencies pretending that there is no real Islamic threat in this country? Is this all about funding? Accountability? Political correctness? I am confused.

bump to the top FYI