To be field under "Just Not Adding Up":
The investigation into the crash of AA 587 is currently looking into why and how the tail separated from the plane. Makes sense. Planes hit a lot of turbulence a lot of the time and I'm still waiting for an expert to explain this to me in English or techno-speak. I don't care. If being 15 seconds shy of the minimum take-off separation causes the tail of the plane to fly off, two questions are raised:

1. When was this minimum standard set-up and has it ever been adjusted.


2. More importantly, I defy anyone to tell me that this is the first time a plane has taken off early. Why were the consequences before not catastrophic?

Finally, the plane seems to have come apart in three stages. First the tail flies off. Second, both engines separate at close to the same time. Third, the body of the plane drops like a stone into Queens. Each stage seems to have occured at definite intervals as there are three concentrated areas of debris. This is important. The whole plane isn't breaking apart. First the tail, then each of the engines and finally the whole plane. STRATFOR had hypothesized that a shoulder launched missle could be responsible. They said this very early on, and I think the evidence that is public doesn't allow for that theory, although I have no pracitcal or theoretical experience with plane explosions. The "dunno list" for this story is a mile long and gets longer with each press release. Hopefully someone in some news room will start looking closely at this. Investigations take a long time and when you're flying, you have myriad varibles in three dimensions. That's a lot of data to analyze. Right now, though, you're going to have to do a lot better explaining the turbulence thing to me, because to my simple mind, it just doesn't add up.
- posted by levinson @ 11/16/2001 11:23:00 AM