February 23, 2004- by Victor Trombettas
Retired Firefighter Tom Lynch, who lives in the Rockaways, sent
us this email yesterday afternoon:
This morning the New York Post made this flight their lead story -- "JFK AIR SCARE":
The front page displayed a picture taken by a passenger of the fuel dump in progress.
Truly a scare, especially for a community that endured the horrific crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in November 2001. Thank goodness yesterday's flight (American 167) was just an engine problem, and the aircraft was able to return to JFK safely after the fuel dump.
The Rockaway community would like to know why aircraft are still flying over their houses (they were promised a significant reduction of overflights after the crash of Flight 587).
The real interest for U.S.Read is the accuracy of Mr. Lynch's witness statement. It appears there wasn't a single flaw in his account, when compared to the picture of the fuel dump, and what else is known about the flight. This is interesting given how the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has classified Mr. Lynch as an "unreliable" witness in regards to another scary event he witnessed, the crash of Flight 587. It's not that the NTSB has singled out Mr. Lynch -- that's generally their opinion about all eyewitnesses to tragic events -- especially aviation crashes.
It should be noted what Mr. Lynch did not say about yesterday's Flight 167. He did not say there was a fire or explosion. This is in contrast to what he said about Flight 587 -- that two explosions (a small and a larger one) occurred on Flight 587 while it was in a level attitude and intact and that the tail departed after those explosions. As he has said on more than one occassion, "I'll take this (certainty) to the grave with me". You can view our 2001 interview with him at: http://www.usread.com/flight587/TomLynchVideo.html
A "witness expert", Dr. Honts, was rolled out by the New York Times last year to enlighten us that witnesses will unintentionally insert events into a story that they may have seen in a movie or on television, that they did not actually witness. We don't doubt that eyewitnesses can often be imperfect in their accounts -- but if Mr. Lynch was unreliable in 2001, wouldn't he be more unreliable now -- given that his psyche has been bruised by the ever-present memory of an exploding Flight 587? Wouldn't we expect that he might somehow corrupt his account of Flight 167 with some byproduct of his imagination? If you believe the NTSB and NY Times, you might expect that. But Mr. Lynch's account of what he saw yesterday was practically perfect. This can only boost his credibility as an eyewitness to the crash of Flight 587.
But let us not get our hopes up -- the NTSB's Flight 587 investigation is not about to come to a screeching halt and finally take heed to what so many fine citizens say they observed that day in 2001.
U.S.Read is working on a major update in our coverage of the NTSB's Flight 587 Investigation. This update will highlight all the known evidence and also highlight dozens of witnesses who saw what Mr. Lynch saw on the morning of November 12, 2001 -- an aircraft shedding debris, an aircraft exploding, an aircraft on fire, before the tail separated. These accounts immediately raise doubt as to the current NTSB theory that tail separation was the cause of the crash. What is shocking is that much of the forensic evidence, the flight recorders, the tollbooth video, the FAA tapes, also support a conclusion contrary to that reached by the NTSB.
The NTSB is quickly moving toward their final report on Flight 587; expectations are that the report will be released this Spring. Dozens, if not hundreds, of witnesses will find it very difficult to accept the NTSB's conclusions as having any basis in reality.