Terror connection to AA 587-- hardly a new thought
Reader comment on item: Why Did American Airlines 587 Crash?

Submitted by J. Keen Holland (United States), Aug 31, 2004 at 05:40

Here is a contemporaneous analysis which points to sabotage, though probably not a bomb.
http://www.geocities.com/mknemesis/airbus.html
Compare some of the facts above to the "official" speculations reported in the Detroit News the day after the crash of 597. How, for example, would engine separation account for the vertical stabilizer separating two miles behind where both engines were found with the fuselage?
http://www.detnews.com/2001/nation/0111/13/

Here's a roughly contemporaneous comment from a responsible source (National Business Review, New Zealand) which seems to assume that Flight 587 crash would be found to be terrorism and points out the economic impact that would have on the US. In other words, it points to a part of the motive the government would have to deny terrorist involvement in the crash.
http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=851&cid=14&cname=Editor%27s+insight
For more on the economic impact on AMR (American Airlines) and the airline indistry, see this report from CBS news the day after the crash.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/11/13/national/main317846.shtml
For a serious critique of the rush to judgment to downplay the terror angle prior to a formal investigation, see this NewsMax.com article from November 15, 2001.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/11/14/200838.shtml

On the other hand, this listing of claimed Al Qaida attacks published in May of this year casts some doubt on the claim of resonsibility for Flight 587 by also claiming credit for the northeast power blackoput.http://www.strategic-road.com/confid/archiv/special310504_3.htm

Dave K. makes an interesting and important point about the effect on the airline industry of blaming the AA 587 crash on an Airbus design defect. I would like to hear more from him on the mechanism by which he (or his FAA source) explain the separation of the entire vertical stablizer from the fuselage. Delamination, as per the Hawaiian incident, doesn"t seem to make sense to me based on the photos I have seen of the vertical stablizer after it was raised from the bay. (To view the photos, follow the first link in my comment.


I think the shoe bomb business is mostly bunkum, but some other sort of sabotage makes a lot of sense to me., unless the purpose of the explosion was to make sure the stresses of flight would cause the separation of the stablizer sooner rather than later. The jury is still out on Flight 587, in my book, although I am convinced that Flight 800 was shot down.

Now, does anyone want to go looking for John Doe #3 from OKC?

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