Witnesses Saw AA 587 Explode in Flames
 

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FLIGHT 587 WITNESSES
BLAST FEDS

By JOHN LEHMANN


January 7, 2002 -- 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 wh ile 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.

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Previous articles on this topic

Surely it was consistent with one or both engines falling off, and fuel igniting from ruptured pipes and possibly tanks? Looking at the clean fractures on the fin mount area, the root cause must be the fin detaching.

Witnesses always see aircraft 'explode and crash'. As far as they are concerned that's what aircraft do when they crash!

Just to add to what MrNosy has pointed out. Witnesses usually seem to see aircraft explode and then crash - even in cases where it is later established that there was no fire prior to impact with the ground. Why? Most likely because light travels faster than sound and witnesses see the flames before they hear the impact.

Come on you ninny, we are talking a vetran police officer and fireman here. Not usually given to sensationalism. If they saw fire coming from that plane the tail coming off didn't cause that. There is nothing back there to burn unless you figured out how to light skydrol.

I will say it again there is nothing short of redlining an airframe that will cause stuff to come off from pilot input.

I will say this for the first time I think that it should be made a CRIMINAL act with serious penalties like 10 years of prison for any NTSB or other crash investigator misleading the public. <img src="mad.gif" border="0">

Hasn't the topic of NTSB impartiality and competance been raised before?

I'd have thought that if there was any truth in the 'sabotage' theory then Airbus would be mounting an all-out campaign to steer the investigation in that direction rather than sit back and watch its composite manufacturing come under the spotlight.

Eye witnesses have been shown time and time again to be unreliable. They believe what they saw, I'm sure, but it doesn't make it right.

Just call me gullible but I'm willing to believe the NTSB when it comes to the big picture.

&lt;If they saw fire coming from that plane the tail coming off didn't cause that. There is nothing back there to burn unless you figured out how to light skydrol.&gt;
1. Actually identifying the seat of a fire on an aeroplane from a distance is very difficult
2. Has anybody said at anytime pre-impact there was a fire in the tail?
3. The fin coming off definitely could have caused the fire. The violent yawing would detach the engines with great damage to the infrastructure and fuel pouring out in great quantities- possibly even from the wing fuel tanks above the engine.
4. I think in this case speculation is best avoided- the professional investigators will make a better job than us!

Do you think its possible that the investigators maybe believe it was a terrorist act but in the interest of public panic prevention,economic stability and downplaying terrorist propoganda that they have been "requested" by the powers that be to issue accident findings?

Seems to me that given the events of 9-11, New Yorkers in particular are going to see terrorist actions even where they don't exist. Hate to say it, but police officers and firefighters still grieving for lost friends might be even more inclined to envision a terrorist act.

Personally, I question whether that tail ever was as structurally sound as it should have been. If there was a repair done during manufacturing to a "found" flaw, might there not have been another flaw that they missed?

As I said in an earlier post on the same subject, if the investigative authority has the sequence of event fixed on the FDR, witness reports that alter this sequence are generally diregarded, as they are subjective ( I was explained once that the biggst shock one gets when witnessing a crash is often the explosion, this is what the brain recalls , and the brain tend to place this event before anything else when it stores it on the long term memory part of the brain,if the sequence of event is very close to one another )

In our case the Airbus FDR used was one of the most sophisticated around recording hundreds of parameters. Surely the NTSB has determined the correct sequence of failures by now.

As to the cover up, if it was a terrorist atack someone in the middle East would have claimed if not responsibility , at least knowledge,and nothing came up that way in any Arab media as far as I am aware. Unless of course this was the act of a loner US citizen ( like the Tampa copycat last week )

Finally as to why Airbus sit tight and say nothing, this could be explained by the fact that they are planning to switch most of their manufacturing in the future to composite. Most of the A380 will be made in composite, including parts of the fuselage...
I agree that if they had the slightest bit of info indicating it could be a terrorist case , they would probably have leaked it to the media by now.

I also trust the NTSB will dig deep and find the cause if they can.

I tend to side with caution on eye witness reports. It may well be that we have experienced police and fire crew but they are not observing and RTA or building fire.

Also, if the a/c was already on fire, their eye would naturally be drawn to that, they would not expect the tail fin to have gone and the question: "Was the tail fin still in place, when you saw the a/c?" might not bring a reliable answer. They (like all/most of us) would never have seen an a/c without a tail fin and the 'usual' image of an a/c in flight might be stronger in their memory ...

On a lighter but related note, I recall reading many years ago, an article about the reliability of eye witness reports. One observer of an a/c impact (no details were given) would not sign his statement until the following words (in italics) were included.

"When he [the pilot] got into difficulties, I heard him give it the gun but he still went in."

The witness insisted on these words because he believed them to be the term that pilots use for applying maximum power. Very sad.

If I am unfortunate enough to witness a prang, I hope that I will think very carefully about what I saw and what I thought I saw.

ATC watcher has it bang on the money about witnesses getting the sequence of events mixed up. I heard this from the head of an Accident Investigation Board.

IMHO he has it slightly wrong on the Airbus front however. Airbus are only advisors to the NTSB, who are responsible for publishing teh definitive report. Any comments they make to the press formally or informally could prejudice that relationship, and I very much doubt if that would be in their best interests.

If you put yourself in the position of the NTSB, the investigation isn't over until it's over. Anything they say can and will be used in evidence against any of the manufacturers or maintenance people or the airline. If they make an interim statement which later turns out to be untrue then whoever cops for the law suit will be pretty pissed off with them. Even if they think they know what happened they can't say much until they've completed their investigation incase something crops up that they hadn't considered. If they rule out everything that we know they're investigating other than one thing then that's a bit of a giveaway.

Keep in mind that the -600 has a funky fuel system where some of the fuel is actually in the tail and could have ignited when the tail tore off.

767, I am not familiar with the fuel system in the -600, but even if they do carry fuel in the vertical stabiliser, there was no evidence of fire there whatsoever. Like it has been stated before, why don't you wait until you see the expert report of the investigation of this accident?

[ 09 January 2002: Message edited by: HotDog ]</p>

Signs are that Airbus is taking every opportunity it can under cover to distance itself from the cause(s)of AA587 by spinning to the media. No, they are'nt pushing the terrorism theory but that trusty catch-all of pilot error. Sadly, the NTSB aren't helping much either by feeding tit bits to their favourite media so that they can add up two and two to make anything they damn well like.

Meanwhile even retired-aviation 'professionals' happily stir the pot either oblivious or uncaring of the memories, feelings and reputations of the victimes of this tragedy.

Many years back I had a book titled 'Aircrash Detective' Not as sensationalist as the title may have one believe, it was an in-depth look into the workings of AAIB and others. A small exercise in there was to describe your wristwatch - without looking at it first. It's probably your most familiar posession, but could you describe it's appearance, winders, hands, face, etc. from memory? Eyewitness reports can only back up technical evidence, and the fuel inside the fin is a very plausible explanation for what was seen.

PAXboy seems to have a point. the tail could very well have left the a/c before the explosion/fire. someone on the ground mightn't notice a silver panel disappearing into a blue or grey sky, but they'd sure as hell notice the flash of an explosion or the bang that it makes.

Anyway, if you were at rockaway with the a/c climbing out, would you even be able to see the tail normally?

Further to that, we all saw the fin, and it was cleanly broken off and it wasn't scorched.

I reckon we can take the witnesses at their word, its just that they probably only noticed the a/c when the chain of events leading to the crash were well underway.

regards,

BGPM.

That -600 didn't have a tail tank. Yes the tail wasn't scorched and the NTSB pictures of the mount points still had unburned composite even after the fire on the ground.

But:

That plane came in after a long 8 hour flight the day before and now your telling me the tail came off in the first 2 minutes of flight the next day. Doubtful. At that speed going into a flat spin should have caused nothing structurally to fail until it hit the ground. Years from now we will know the truth, maybe.
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