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What our second favorite air crash shill (now that we no longer have the illustrious Elmer Barr to kick around) isn't telling you is that airplanes come apart due to "unusual attitude."

Both the engines, and the tail came off. They came off for the same reason: the plane was out of control and sideways. They are the largest surfaces that, if you orient them the wrong way, will break off.

AA587 was out of control before the tail and engines got ripped off due going 300kts sideways. The qustions is: Why was it out of control? Witnesses saw fire and/or explosions on board. The shoe bomber was caught shortly afterward. So which is more likely: a successful shoe bomber or baggage bomb, or an unexplained mystery failure?

AA Flight 587 disaster with tail (vertical stabilizer and rudder) conditions existed before FLT 586 disaster:

Perilous Parallel in 1997 Flight (to AA587)

By Sylvia Adcock
STAFF WRITER
Washington - It almost happened once before.
October 30, 2002
Airplanes aren't supposed to lose their tails, but in 1997, another Airbus 300-600 came within a hair's breadth of suffering the same fate as American Flight 587, the plane that crashed into Belle Harbor after its tail came off.
In May 1997, American Flight 903 was approaching Miami for a landing when the plane nearly stalled. As the pilot attempted to recover, he moved the rudder back and forth several times as far as it would go. Calculations done since the Flight 587 accident show the action put loads - or forces - on the tail that were greater than it was designed to take.
The maneuvers injured a passenger and a flight attendant, and the National Transportation Safety Board was called in to investigate. But the issues that surround Flight 587 - the strength of the Airbus' tail and how pilots use the rudder - didn't capture the attention of airlines or pilots.
Airbus did submit a statement to the NTSB after the Miami incident saying that "rudder reversals can lead to structural loads that exceed the design of the fin." But that information never became common knowledge in the pilot community. It wasn't until after the Flight 587 accident, when the forces on the tail did rip it off, that the NTSB issued recommendations that pilots be warned about incorrect rudder use.

More: www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safety_Issues/others/perilousparallel.html