The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has issued an update on its investigation into the crash in New York of American Airlines Flight 587.
"On November 12, 2001, at approximately 9:17 a.m., American Airlines flight 587, an Airbus A300-600, N14053, crashed into a neighborhood in Belle Haven, New York, several minutes after taking off from Kennedy International Airport.
"The plane was on a scheduled flight to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. All 260 persons aboard the plane died, as did 5 on the ground.
"The following is an update of factual information developed during the Safety Board's investigation.
More than 70 American pilots have signed a petition urging the airline to ground Airbus A300 jets over safety concerns. Flight 587, the plane involved in the November crash in New York, was an Airbus A300.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by doc: More than 70 American pilots have signed a petition urging the airline to ground Airbus A300 jets over safety concerns. Flight 587, the plane involved in the November crash in New York, was an Airbus A300.
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NTSB Warns About Rudder Swings
Federal air-safety officials haven't determined what prompted the violent rudder swings that may have caused an American Airlines jet to crash in New York last year, but warned that in rare instances, such movements can lead to potentially catastrophic structural failures.
The warnings -- which come amid increasing pressure from AMR Corp.'s American Airlines unit, pilots and others to get to the bottom of the A300 crash in November that killed 265 people -- raise broad questions about pilot training and aircraft design.
The National Transportation Safety Board recommended on Friday that training programs make pilots aware of such in-flight dangers. The move was immediately embraced by federal regulators, manufacturers and pilot-union leaders, but it threatens to add fuel to a behind-the-scenes debate between Airbus and Boeing Co. The dispute centers on design criteria and safeguards each manufacturer used through the years to prevent extreme rudder swings from damaging the tail sections of their aircraft, and how much information the companies shared with pilots.
Before they can fly in commercial airspace, airliners have to be
certified by the FAA - among other things - and show they can hold
together under certain conditions. In the case of American Airlines
flight 587, which crashed last year outside JFK killing all 260
onboard, did these certification requirements go far enough? It's rare
for pilots to go on the record asking their airline to ground an
airplane. Yet, that's precisely what more than 60 American Airlines
pilots want their company to do. They want AA to stop flying its fleet
of A300s until investigators can determine why flight 587 crashed.
Location: Westchester, NY AA P/2MM, DL SM/MM, STW PLT
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Tapes From Flight 587 Show Clean Takeoff
WASHINGTON (AP)--Doomed American Airlines (AMR) Flight 587 took off without problems in New York, though pilots were warned of turbulence from the plane that preceded it in the air, newly released air traffic control tapes show.
Tapes of conversations between air traffic controllers and crew of the American Airlines Airbus A300-600 showed no problems until a voice is heard saying the plane was descending to the ground.
The tapes, released Wednesday by the Federal Aviation Administration, don't indicate whether the voice was that of a controller of a member of the flight crew. The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the Nov. 12 crash.
"Tower look to the south, there's an aircraft crashing," came the message, at 9:16:13 a.m. EST, shortly after the plane took off from Kennedy Airport.
Thirty-six seconds later, a controller called Flight 587 and told the pilots the tower wasn't receiving signals from the plane's transponder, an automatic beacon that allows the plane to be tracked. In the next two minutes the controller tried three more times to raise the pilots but got no answer.
At 9:18 a.m. the pilots of another American plane, Flight 686, reported they saw black smoke. "It's a huge fire, a tremendous amount of black smoke," they told the tower.
American Airlines to remove tail fin of Airbus jet
Investigators probing the crash of an American Airlines jetliner last year in New York are looking very closely at a 1997 incident in which the crew of a similar aircraft lost control of their plane in mid-flight, officials said on Monday.
