ot: another plane down in NY

Dracus · #1 November 12th, 2001, 04:27 PM

Sorry to post this, but it is another dark day.

tesco samoa · #2 November 12th, 2001, 04:52 PM

One request. Before this topic flies off into a rage or false information gathering session.

Could we only talk about facts not hearsay about this tragic accident.

So before you post please take 3 deep breathes and reread what your going to post.

If it seems appropriate post it.........
Thanks

Simon.

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Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!

Dracus · #3 November 12th, 2001, 05:15 PM

Right now they don't know anything other then it appears to have been an airbus taking off from JFK.

LazarusLong42 · #4 November 12th, 2001, 07:38 PM

Gotta agree with Tesco. Here's what we know so far:

Airbus 300 taking off from JFK--American flight 587 (I think I'm getting the number right) headed for Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. It crashed five minutes after takeoff in Rockaway, Queens (eyewitness reports place it on 129th street). Eyewitnesses are also saying the plane was flaming and debris was falling as it came down.

NTSB has been appointed as the lead investigative team, indicating the the government is starting with the assumption that this is an accident. However, Ari Fleischer (White House press sec'y) says no one is jumping to any conclusions either way. The cause is not known; black boxes are expected to be easy to recover, though, the crash being on land.

Preliminary passenger list: 246 passengers, 9 crew members.

Eric

apache · #5 November 13th, 2001, 01:24 AM

Here is my assumption on what happened to it, simply based on the descriptions of what people saw. My guess is that a few blades, or possibly even a full disk broke off and were shot through the wing, igniting fuel and causing the engine to vibrate heavily, as well as tearing up the wing, and probably the fuselage too. The engine vibrations then shook the engine off the wing (they are designed to do that, so the engine shakes off the wing instead of the whole wing shaking off the plane), while the rest of the fuel caught fire and the plane became one big fireball. What caused it? Probably a lack of maintainance, or just poor maintainance on the blades didn't find that a few of them were cracked or should have otherwise been replaced. I highly doubt it was a terrorist act.

Baron Munchausen · #6 November 13th, 2001, 01:46 AM

As a few news programs have mentioned in passing, a mere bird like a seagull can do an amazing amount of damage to a plane when it's moving at full speed or under heavy stress like during takeoff. If a moderate-sized bird got sucked into that engine it could have set off the chain of events you describe without anyone being criminally negligent in maintenance work.