Posted on 11/16/2001 1:18:40 PM PST by Map Kernow
Just two days after the FBI said it was investigating witness accounts that American Airlines Flt. 587 exploded in midair before it broke apart over New York's Jamaica Bay on Monday, NTSB investigators are pushing the theory that air turbulence from another jetliner -- and not any explosion -- caused the crash that scattered wreckage covering a half mile wide area.
"We are consistently looking for any sign of sabotage and not finding any," said NTSB spokeswoman Marion Blakely on Wednesday. "There is no evidence of any bomb, of any sabotage, at this point."
That's not what the investigators were saying just hours after the crash, as reported in an Associated Press alert that flashed into newsrooms across the country.
"The Associated Press (is) saying the Bush administration says the FBI believes there was an explosion aboard the plane, and they are investigating its source," reported CNN's Paula Zahn around midday.
"Senior administration officials tell CNN that the FBI is trying to find out the source of that explosion on the American Airlines flight," echoed the news network's Major Garrett.
As what sounded like an official confirmation that Flt. 587 had exploded ricocheted around the world, Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer denied the report, saying no administration official had made that statement -- but that the FBI would not dismiss what eyewitnesses had seen.
And what nearly every witness to Flt. 587's ascent over Jamaica Bay said they saw was an explosion and/or a fire, something not likely cause by "wind turbulence."
CNN's Zahn reported that morning, "We got five eyewitnesses to describe what they saw as an explosion coming, most of them believed from the right wing."
On WABC Radio in New York, vivid accounts of a midair explosion poured in from callers who saw Flt. 587 from both sides of Jamaica Bay.
"I saw an enormous flash where the wing meets the plane," a woman who was out walking her dog told host John Gambling. "I don't know if it was fire or an explosion. It appeared that debris fell from the left side [of the plane]."
Another eyewitness who called into the radio station said, "The right wing seemed to catch fire and explode. The wing was on fire with a trail of smoke behind it."
"I saw the plane going across Jamaica Bay," a third witness told WABC. "It was trying to ascend and then it just exploded."
By Tuesday, some already suspected a cover-up.
"I keep hearing the authorities talk about an engine falling off the plane and (then) an explosion," eyewitness Rod McHale told the New York Post. "That's not what I heard and saw. There was an explosion and then the engine fell off.... I'm convinced it's terrorism."
Before the NTSB mounted its full court press on the air turbulence theory, ABC News aviation expert John Nance told WABC Radio's Gambling the probers were grasping at straws.
GAMBLING: The theory that this plane, Flt. 587, was going through the wash of a 747 ahead of it -- that really seems to be sort of a bogus theory.
NANCE: It really is. I think a lot of folks jumped on that last night, I think, misunderstanding the reality that these aircraft fly through severe turbulence. It could be the initiating event of something that was about to happen, but it would not be the cause itself.
Stay tuned.
But none of probably 250 posts can plausibly explain why an A300 managed to dissemble itself in the air, and why so many people reported fire from the right wing root.
I want it to be tragic, mechanical, structural failure. I fear it is clever terrorism.
I want to laugh. I really do. But, I can't.
This is going to be a battle among Airbus, GE, and American Airlines. AA wants the public to think it's an Airbus issue. Airbus wants everyone to think it's a security issue. GE just wants everyone to think it's either security or the tailfin.
And now the flight data recorder has been sent away for "repair." (I believe it's back already.)
It will be interesting to see if the "data" on the "repaired" FDR provide really strong support for one theory or another.
Mark W.
Even if wings detach from planes, I don't think engines necessarily detatch from the wing. I could be wrong on this one. But it seems real strange to me that both engines and the tail detatched and fell separately.
I too find it very difficult to buy the turbulence theory. Over hundreds of thousands of flights, surely many other identical (similar) aircraft have taken of under similiar circumstances. None of them disintigrated. This was one of the same arguements I had regarding TWA 800. Look at the planes that sit on the ground in Saudi Arabia or other places in the Middle East. The idea that the center tank got too hot, or the wiring was a known defect just doesn't cut it. Otherwise in the normal course of action, we'd have other craft suffering the same fates.
I'm still waiting for a good solid explanation for this crash. As of yet I'm not making any determination regarding the government's handling of it.
On that issue, the latest theory the NTSB investigators are playing with is that the Airbus frame is structurally weaker than other manufactures because it's made of a "composite." That's how they're struggling to explain that weirdly clean shear-off of the tail. No word on the composition of this "composite"---chewing gum and boogers?
It is VERY interesting to note (as pointed out by an earlier Freeper) that the Flight VOICE Recorder was found in the wreckage.... while the Flight DATA recorder was recovered by a diver.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but don't those babies live together in the tail? And if so, the seperation seems strange.
One of the things that really bugged me the very first day of the investigation was the announcement that the FBI would not lead the investigation. They meant to send a very clear signal to everyone, despite all the pious claims that they're "looking into all possibilities," that they were discounting the possibility that the crash was due to terrorism or sabotage. If I can make this comparison without being too invidious, it had troubling similarities to the Vince Foster "suicide" investigation, where the Park Police, rather than the FBI, was given responsibility for investigating the violent death of a top White House official.
Where did you learn this? I heard on Fox News yesterday a report that the FDR had been found "right on someone's front lawn."
I believe both recorders were found on land.
AP sez so: Flight Data Recorder Found Apparently the FDR was found "...on the same street where four homes were destroyed."
Mark W.
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