And all you hair-trigger tinfoilers were screaming terrorism before the parts even hit the ground. On every train wreck thread you guys scream terrorism, coverup, and completely wear out that "nothing to see here, move along" blather, though NONE have been connected to terrorism, and the rate post-911 is no higher than before.
Never let facts, logic, or occam's razor delay your rushing to conclusions...
The facts are that multiple eyewitnesses at street level who told investigators (and public media outlets) that they saw an explosion followed by fire near the engine that came off BEFORE the tail section.
The fact is, the gov't refused to release the tollbooth video which would have shown the smoking wing-section and an intact tail section. To respond with "we don't believe this is terrorism" within HOURS of arriving at the site where human remains were still being tagged was the height of stupidity. Planes with detaching tail sections are grounded and/or re-designed. When a DC-10 went down at O'Hare in 1979 because of cracks in the engine pylons (the engine fell off during takeoff), the entire nationwide fleet was grounded for MONTHS for full inspections. No public company would take the risk of a repeat accident happening without an intensive review of the design and potential flaws. This never happened. Not by Airbus, not by American Airlines.
With the additional Richard Reid event over the Atlantic Ocean, just two months later, it would not be a leap to say that Reid, who specifically requested a seat over the wing section of his plane, failed to accomplish what was accomplished in NY in October.
"Never let facts, logic, or occam's razor delay your rushing to conclusions..."
The ShoeBomber allows Flight 587 to fall into all those categories, and would have had the same result if the passengers hadn't reacted. I also read that the showbomber was sitting in the same part of the plane that the primary eyewitness said the 587 explosion came from.