Thu, Sep 30, 2004
Will Say Copilot Overmanipulated Rudder
The National
Transportation Safety Board will reportedly lay the blame on the
pilot of an American Airlines A300-600 that went down in Queens
three years ago.
Flight 587 went down three years ago in Rockaway, Queens (NY),
killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground. The
New York Times quotes federal investigators who say, after the Airbus flew into the wake of a Boeing
747, the copilot aggressively worked the rudder pedals back and
forth until the vertical stabilizer completely delaminated from the
aircraft.
The copilot's father, himself a retired airline pilot, is highly
critical of the leaked report. After talking with witnesses to the
November 12th, 2001 accident, Stan Molin thinks the plane might
have suffered some sort of electrical or mechanical
failure.
"I can't imagine him really creating this crash. I can't picture
that," he told WABC News. There was something that was happening to
that airplane. I don't think that my son, or the captain, knew and
understood what was going on, on that airplane. Regardless of what
it was."
The soon-to-be-released
NTSB report will reportedly partially vindicate the plane's
manufacturer, Airbus and will reportedly not mention a 1997
incident over Florida where an Airbus flight crew overworked the
rudder pedals, almost causing the very same sort of
delamination.
Flight 587 was bound for the Dominican Republic when it went
down on November 12th, 2001. The NTSB will meet in
Washington, DC on October 26th to release its final report.
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