Pristine detatched vertical stabilizer
 

The vertical stabilizer (tail fin) extracted from the bay appeared to be intact and undamaged, other than being separated from the aircraft. Clearly it was not broken off as a result of something hitting it. That leaves as possibilities some sort of explosion, or something hitting the mounting point at the base of the tail VERY HARD. Comments?

Why do you think that an explosion would result in a pristine piece of the airplane?

Could you please post the source stating that the stabilizer was in pristine condition?

It is not unusual, in a crash, to have something pristine. There have even been some cases of serious crashes in which a few passengers were in, basically, pristine condition (alive).

[This message has been edited by sbrower (edited 11-13-2001).]

A colleague of mine who is a private pilot thinks that the tail broke due to high loads caused possibly by sudden application of full rudder at speed. If so, he expects to see an airworthiness directive on the A300 and similar airframes. My explosion theory is probably bunk.

Not necessarily. You might want to take a gander at this thread for the truth, for it is out there:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005635.html

This crash has some very funny characteristics to it. Namely:

Pristine vertical stabilizer (look at the picture for yourself).

Rudder detached from vertical stabilizer.

Both engines flew off their mounts.

NO significant weather at takeoff.

Precceding takeoff, even though it was a 747, was seven (7) miles ahead; normal spacing is four/five miles. Wake turbulence?

How many other crashes do you know about where the vertical stabilizer came off? Only one I can think of is the JAL 747 and there the aft bulkhead blew out taking the stabilizer with it. But, the pilot flew that plane for more than thirty (30) mins.

No folks - seems to me like there is just too many solid pieces of metal (grade-8 bolts) that did NOT hold together, ALL AT THE SAME TIME??? Amazing coincidence??

Had to be the stabilizer that went first. But why could FO not control direction and attitude with engines and elevators??

Elevators control attitude - anyone seen any elevator wreckage?

People from the other side of the looking glass always say they don't believe in amazing coincidences.

dAAvid -

Agreed that it appears highly unusual, AA SLF, but do you have any suggestions?

I am considering the facts (I am assuming they are true) that: 1) the cockpit voice recorder has discussion about control problems, and has rattling noises, but no mention of explosion, etc.; 2) there were apparently no burn marks on the tail section.

I don't think that someone "loosened" the tail during maintenance. An "A" check doesn't include tail removal.

If the tail and both engines came loose in flight, it is conceivable that they had some help. Maybe loosened bolts (obviously outside a normal A check procedure) or maybe something else.

If all signs point to a mechanical problem, why hasn't AA or the FAA grounded all A300s? Maybe that's not typical operating procedure, but it would reassure me that AA is spending the right amount of time/money in their post-cutback era on mechanical/maintenance. With 10,000 job cuts, I assume some of those affected maintenance...

Does anyone know where the equipment in question originated that day? Or was it brought in the night before?

Has anyone heard about an interview with the cockpit crew on the flight TO JFK?

Might be interesting -

JB

According to the NY Times, the a/c on Sunday went from Newark to Miami to Costa Rica, then Costa Rica to Miami to JFK.

I raised these same questions in this thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/003316.html

sbrower - No, I do not have any suggestions. Still very suspicious in my mind though. Just finished watching Fox News with nice pictures of the clamps (that apperantly hold the vertical stabilized to the airframe) showing broken part with a very wavey pattern of seperation. I just learned today that the VS is NOT made of metal but rather it is a composite structure.

VS dampens yaw (side to side motion) rudder fine tunes direction (yaw). I can understand tremendous control problems if VS is lost, but still don't have any ideas why BOTH engines "seperate" from mountings. Must have been tremendous force to seperate engines.

Still have not heard anything about elevators. These keep plane "level" (or move nose up/down as desired). Why did plane suddenly "nose over" into a dive if FO still has elevator control.

As I noted in my first post above - the JAL 747 flew for a long time without any VS. JAL plane did have elevators intact after VS seperation. Also had engine speed control and "steered" with engine RPMs as did the UA flight in Iowa.

Still very strange circumstances, but I have no magic explanation that's for sure.

Have another source you can read. Hope this URL thing works. If it doesn't come in as a hotlink then copy and paste and go take a look:

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_maint.jsp?view=story&id=news/raa11114.xml

dAAvid -

[This message has been edited by AA SLF (edited 11-14-2001).] Aha - it worked. I am so amazed that I did it correctly. Really very simple. - dAAvid -

[This message has been edited by AA SLF (edited 11-14-2001).]

The pilots of American Airlines Flight 587, in trying to right the doomed plane in the minutes after takeoff, were probably unaware its tail fin had broken off, a federal investigator said Thursday.

"They don't know what's going on," George Black Jr., a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "They don't have a rearview mirror. They have no idea they've lost a tail."

Black said investigators "almost certainly think" the tail was the first part to break off the plane.

http://www.syracuse.com/newsflash/in...sh-newyork-syr

Check out Friday's Wall Street Journal. If you subscribe to the electronic version, the URL is http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/r...7240671320.djm

It looks like the pilot provided the help in the form of large rudder inputs in response to wake turbulence. Possible additional help from hidden damage from a previous incident. This is potential bad news for the Airbus builders. I guess the next major question will be how to inspect composite structures for damage. Race car builders may know something about this.

The actual stabilizer itself does seem to be in pristine condition. The pristine object is, however, supported underneath by some things we haven't seen.

This particular Airbus was involved in a severe turbulence incident in which 46 people were injured. Whether that has anything to do with it or not the condition of the rudder would have no association with the condition of the materials below connecting it to the fuselage.

Just because the car is pretty doesn't mean it's mechanically sound http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

One other thing.

If the left engine fell off first, the pilot would have applied full right rudder to counter the force lost by the left engine.

Now, if the support structure for the tail section indeed had some undetected damage (i.e. cracks like in the fans of the Sioux City crash) that force (full right rudder to offset left engine loss) COULD have been enough to break it off. This is supposition on my part as an instrument rated pilot....I am by no means a physicist, structural or mechanical engineer, though.

I'm sure we will know more in the next few days.

On a side note, it pains me that so many citizens from the Dominican Republic, who don't mean us any harm, and simply want to participate in a country/system much better than theirs perished in this.

And, naturally, the United States citizens and the flight crews from AA, already making our country what it is.

I am scared one of them may have been a Flight Attendant on my flight from MIA-CUN in September. Her name is Carol Palm. She gave us superb service on that flight and two of us sent an SOS. So far, every listing for passengers and crew is just giving country status i.e. U.S. or Dominican Republic. I don't know Carol's last name but she did tell us she had worked for Eastern before joining American, and I believe (not sure) lived in Tampa.

Would appreciate any information other FFT's could provide such I could send her family something if that was indeed she.

LLZ -

I am sad to inform you that Ms. Carol Palm was a member of the cabin crew on AA-587.

Her name is on the official list released by AMR Corp on their web site (amrcorp).

I have no other info about this fine FA. Maybe AMR Corp can be of some help to you. They have an "800" number posted on their web site, first page.

dAAvid -

Could there be a difference in trying to control a Boeing Vs. an Airbus in this condition? Doesn't the Airbus give the pilot less control? (I just remember that footage from the Paris Airshow where they demo'ed an Airbus and it just plowed into the ground after a touch and go landing.)

Yes, the same fly-by-wire system that makes it more difficult to accidently ram an Airbus into something else also makes it more difficult to try an extraordinary or last-ditch maneuver, I would think.

I guess someone who has had simulator time on both frames could tell us the differences for sure.

The A300 does not have fly-by-wire.

There's a well-informed technical piece at http://www.aero-news.net (about the third story down).

Edited to add: The gist of the story is that an Airworthiness Directive was recently issued against the A319/20/21 motivated by concern that it suffers from elevator flutter that could render an aircraft uncontrollable. The aero-news article speculates that the A300, which apparently has an essentially identical mechanical design for the tail section, suffered flutter that broke off the tail. The AD requires A320-type operators to adjust the trim so that the elevator is aerodynamically loaded. (But wouldn't the elevators naturally be loaded on climb out?)

If you have a subscription to Aviation Week, you can find the original article on the A320 AD by going to http://www.awstonline.com and searching on "elevator flutter".

[This message has been edited by someotherguy (edited 11-16-2001).]

The speculation from the NTSB is centering on wake turbulence snapping the tail off leaving the plane uncontrollable.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/11/16/ny.crash/index.html