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THE MYSTERY OF AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 587
Programme : CHANNEL 4 NEWS
Duration : 4 MINUTES 50 SECONDS
KRISHNAN GURU-MURTHY:
Welcome back.
There were horrible echoes of September the 11th when American
Airlines Flight 587 crashed into New York's Rockaway Peninsular
last November. It was soon declared an accident with the theory
that the plane had become trapped in the turbulence of the plane
travelling in front of it - pilot error was another theory - but
now an investigation by the magazine, Vanity Fair, casts serious
doubt on the official line and reveals dangers lurking in the
Airbus A300/600.
Our Science Reporter, Julian Rush has been examining the evidence.
JULIAN RUSH: Reporter
Coming two months after September the 11th, the crash of Flight
587 was the last thing the battered and reeling US airline industry
needed. Within hours, even before its investigators were on the
scene, the newly appointed NTSB Chairwoman, Marion Blakey, said
is was an accident. The USA breathed a sigh of relief; the terrorists
had not struck again. But the NTSB's rush to judgement, perhaps
under political pressure, had alarmed seasoned investigators.
VERNON GROSE: Former NTSB Board Member
So from that very point on, there's only two ... it's a lose-lose:
if it turns out to be an accident, then everybody will suspect
the NTSB is twisting the evidence; if it turns out to be a terrorist
act, then it'll look as though they tried to mislead the people.
JULIAN RUSH:
Forced to come up with an alternative explanation, the NTSB
suggested pilot error. A Japanese Airline 747 took-off 105 seconds
before Flight 587. Official said the Airbus' data recorder had
registered two small separate jolts consistent they said with
Flight 587 flying into the turbulent wake of the jumbo jet. The
pilots they claimed overreacted. But the calculations based on
radar data and known wind-speed and direction suggests that simply
never happened. They've been done by a network of pilots and experts
across the internet.
DAVID ROSE: Writer, 'Vanity Fair'
Victor Trombettas, who lives in Queens, has assembled this
remarkable network of aviation experts and on whose work I have
drawn very heavily, has calculated using the radar data, the relative
positions of the two planes and computed that with the wind-speed
and direction on the day, and what he has shown is that the wake
from the from the 747, the air mass that contains that turbulence,
doesn't even get halfway to Flight 587.
JULIAN RUSH:
The NTSB investigation has focused on the tailfin that snapped-off
almost certainly after the rudder was jerked from side to side
five times. Pilot overreaction has been suggested. But Rose discovered
US pilots have sent the NTSB a dossier of what are called 'un-commanded
rudder movements' on the Airbus A300 - unexplained, but they suspect
the plane's electronic control systems. They asked for the fleet
to be grounded, the NTSB refused.
The internet investigators found more. Recordings of radio traffic
and what's known about what was said in the cockpit suggest the
plane was already in trouble long before the fatal rudder movements.
DAVID ROSE:
One of the very first things that happens is the plane sends
out corrupt, unreadable radar data - something very, very unusual.
Now, was that the first sign of some huge control or electronic
system malfunction. We know from witnesses that the plane was
flying for quite some time in a very strange attitude, the nose
was out of alignment with the direction of flight - it was skidding
across the sky long before these rudder movements started. Now,
what had caused that?
JULIAN RUSH:
Then there's the ground audio tapes that record Flight 587
acknowledging instructions as normal.
GROUND CONTROL:
American 587 heavy, turn left, proceed direct wavey.
PILOT: American Airlines, Flight 587
Turn Direct wavey American 587 Heavy
JULIAN RUSH:
Then they catch a voice saying 'Try escape!' that the father
of the Airbus co-pilot has identified as his son.
CO-PILOT: American Airlines, Flight 587
Try escape!
JULIAN RUSH:
Escape is a known emergency procedure where pilots apply maximum
power. Moments later they did. Why is the big mystery.
MAN #1 (Tom Lynch):
And I saw an explosion in the sky and I saw the plane it looked
like one of its wings fell off.
VERNON GROSE:
There are a number of eyewitnesses from quite a variety of
positions of observation that did see fire on the right side of
the aircraft, on the fuselage, aft of the wing, prior to the time
the tail even came off.
JULIAN RUSH:
Fire can be cause or effect, but Grose says officials will,
as they have done before, dismiss eyewitnesses as 'unreliable'.
Tonight, the NTSB said its investigation was ongoing. It's early
judgements though looking increasingly questionable.
