[iwar] [fc:THE.MYSTERY.OF.FLIGHT.587]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-11-26 16:34:27
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 16:34:27 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: [iwar] [fc:THE.MYSTERY.OF.FLIGHT.587]
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THE MYSTERY OF FLIGHT 587
(The FBI Will Never Find the Terrorist Who Caused the Crash)
(BJNews, November 15, 2001)
 On Monday, November 12, 2001 American Airlines Airbus A300 Flight 587
crashed and burned, just two minutes and 24 seconds after take off from JFK
International Airport in New York City. Within minutes the speculation for
the cause ran from aircraft failure to terrorist attack.  Immediately, both
the FBI and the NTSB began a formal investigation. The NTSB was in charge of
investigating the crash and the FBI would take over if evidence of sabotage
were found. So far, the investigators have eliminated a number of possible
theories, such as birds damaging the engines, simple engine failure, or
possible bomb or missile attacks.
On Tuesday, the 13th, during the NTSB press conference, one of the reporters
asked, "What about the possibility of a thrust reverser failure?" The
reporters were told there was no evidence of that and its not possible for
that to occur during flight. What the NTSB and FBI failed to tell the
reporters is that it is not possible for there to be a thrust reverser
failure in flight, UNLESS the thrust reverser controls were sabotaged by a
terrorist. Instead, the investigation seems to focus on the possibility that
wake turbulence from a 747 jumbo jet which had taken off just minutes before
Flight 587 had caused the damage to the plane and caused the crash.
What is confusing to most knowledgeable aircraft investigators is that this
is completely impossible. It is not possible for any type of turbulence to
rip off the tail of an airplane, and then have it go out of control in such
a way that both engines would also fall off. In August 1985 a Japanese
Boeing 747 with the vertical tail assembly completely torn away continued to
fly in large circles for over half an hour before it hit a mountain. But
only because the pilots were busy trying to figure out what happened to the
plane and did not watch where they were going. It did not go into an instant
out of control spin with complete loss of the engines.
The Air Force's B-2 Flying Wing stealth bomber is a perfect example to prove
that a plane with absolutely NO vertical fin or stabilizer is able to fly
and does not instantly become unstable and crash. The B-2 uses modern
"fly-by-wire" computers to keep the plane flying straight and level. The
original flying wing design from the 1950's also flew but using manual
flight controls made it rather difficult to steer with no rudder. The Airbus
A300 uses a modern "fly-by-wire" computer system and would fly quite easily
with complete loss of the vertical fin and rudder. The NTSB's claim that the
loss of Flight 587's vertical fin and rudder might be the cause of the loss
of the control of the plane which caused it to crash is both misleading and
deceptive.
Any theory blaming the failure of the vertical fin and rudder assembly as
the cause cannot account for why the engines would fall off the plane. Any
theory blaming an engine failure as the cause cannot account for why the
tail assembly would snap off cleanly with no appearance of blast damage from
an exploding engine.

Thus there would need to be three separate simultaneous failures, of the
tail assembly and both pylons holding the engines on the plane to
account for those three effects observed before the plane crashed.  Most
air accident investigators would easily conclude that the chances of
three simultaneous airframe failures all occurring at the same time is
not probable.  It must be one or the other but not all three.  It would
be much easier to conclude that something else actually caused all three
failures.  Thus the breaking off of the tail and both engines is not the
cause of the crash, but is the effect of some other single failure which
caused the crash.  And what would that be? If the left engine thrust
reverser had either partially or completely actuated during flight, it
would cause the plane to go into a flat spin to the left.  The airplane
woulld spin something like a flat Frisbee with the right engine pushing
forward and the left engine pushing backwards.  Within a second of the
flat spin occurring, the sideways wind blast would rip off the tail
assembly since it was never designed to take such a side blast of air. 
As soon as the tail assembly broke off there is now very little wind
resistance to the flat spin.  At this point the engines would cause the
aircraft to spin even faster with the g-forces away from the center of
the spin becoming so great that both engines would be violently ripped
off the wings and thrown outward away from the plane. 

This accounts for why the engines were found so far away from the crash
site and why the tail came off first.  Thus a single point failure, the
in-flight actuation of the left engine thrust reverser, can account for
all three observed phenomena of the clean breaking off of the tail and
the failure of both engine pylons holding the engines.  But how can that
happen when there are so many safety devices to ensure that it never
occurs?

That is quite simple. The American Airlines Airbus was parked overnight in
preparation for its flight to Santo Domingo the next morning. During the
night, a terrorist saboteur disguised as a ground crew mechanic could reach
up in the back of the left jet engine and with a pair of diagonal cutter
pliers simply cut the hydraulic line going to the thrust reverser actuator
and the control safety sensor lines. The next morning about an hour after
the jet engines were started, the hydraulic fluid now under pressure would
drip from the cut line until none was left in the line and the thrust
reverser would simply slowly drift into the full on condition while in
flight and a catastrophic crash would occur only seconds later.
Until September 11th, 2001, nobody would have believed that 19 airplane
hijackers armed only with box cutters could bring down both towers of the
World Trade Center. But now we know better. Is it now so hard to believe
that a single terrorist armed with a pair of pliers could bring down an A300
Airbus?
This is called "asymmetric warfare," or "thinking outside the box," or
simply using low-tech tools in a new way to destroy the high-technology of
an advanced culture. Is it possible to show that the in-flight actuation of
the left thrust reverser is the actual cause of the Flight 587 Crash? Yes.
But you would probably ask, "How do you know such things?" 
First, I have been a pilot since 1962. I have put planes in almost every
possible flight configuration. I am not a flight instructor, but for years I
taught ground school classes in airframes, aircraft engines and air
navigation. Second, I have degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering
and physics, and for many years I was assigned to do failure analysis for
many NASA Space Shuttle incidents. In 1983, two communications satellites
were left useless in low-orbit because the firing mechanism to launch them
into hi-orbit failed. Several years later Shuttle flights recaptured the
failed satellites and I was tasked to determine the cause of the failure. In
three days of analysis


I found the cause and the controls were redesigned and the failure never
occurred again. In 1987, the Air Force was launching a secret satellite from
the Shuttle using a Boeing supplied launch system. The actuators for the
launch system were made by UTC. Final checks before launch showed that one
of the actuators appeared to be faulty and had failed the initial tests at
UTC but somehow had been installed into the Shuttle anyway. My task was to
prove that the actuator was not faulty but only appeared faulty due to an
improper testing device. In four days I found the faulty test device and
proved the launch actuator was in fact ready for space flight.
I did my usual scientific analysis "dog and pony show" for two Air Force
Generals, and the Vice-presidents of both Boeing and UTC. Everybody was
happy. The Air Force got their satellite on orbit on schedule. The VPs from
Boeing and UTC were happy since they did not need to pay the $5 million
penalty the government would assess for unstacking the Shuttle to replace
the "defective" launch actuator and for delaying the project. Thus, what I
am about to explain comes from many years of flight experience, along with
years of experience in aerospace failure analysis. 
According to the publicly available information from the NTSB, the Cockpit
Voice Recorder (CVR) shows everything was normal in the flight until about
107 seconds after the initial run-up of the engines as Flight 587 began to
roll down the runway for takeoff. At this point in time the plane is about
3,000 feet in the air and the sound of an "airframe rattle" is heard in the
CVR record. No explanation was given for this noise. But as I propose, what
was happening was the left thrust reverser was starting to close and this
caused the plane to turn to the left. The pilot would compensate by using
his feet to apply right rudder to bring the nose back to straight flight by
turning to the right.
When applying strong right rudder this usually causes the left wing to tilt
upward so most pilots would instinctively also apply opposite or left
aileron to keep the plane straight and level. Most pilots would recognize
this flight configuration as a side-slip. This would be a rather strange
maneuver for a commercial airliner especially during take off. This is often
called the "poor mans air-brakes" since this odd configuration results in
the opposite compensating controls surfaces to stick out in the wind and
really slow down the aircraft.

I have done this maneuver many times in small aircraft to quickly lose
airspeed or drop in altitude in preparation for landing. During this
condition the burbling air flowing over the extended control surfaces makes
a lot of noise and seems to make the plane shake, rattle and roll. This
would account for the airframe rattle noise heard on the CVR at 107 seconds
into the flight. The pilot probably thought he had overcompensated and was
worried about losing too much airspeed and so then returned the controls
back to normal and the rattling momentarily stopped. But the plane continued
to turn back to the left.
Seven seconds later, one of the flight crew comments about "air turbulence"
with no further comment, and it would seem the pilot again tried to
compensate for the strong drift of the plane to the left caused by the
partially closing thrust reverser by again applying strong right rudder and
opposite aileron as the same rattling sound is heard again several seconds
later at 121 seconds into the flight. Four seconds later, at 125 seconds
into the flight, the first officer calls for "full power" presumably to
compensate for the side-slip maneuvers which had really slowed the plane
down to dangerously slow speed. 

This was a fatal mistake, but not caused by the pilot. As soon as the power
went to full, the spinning effect caused by the partially or fully actuated
thrust reverser would cause the plane to now spin out of control in a flat
spin. Two seconds later, at 127 seconds, the CVR shows one of the flight
crew makes a comment about being out of control. No more comments are made
after that and the recording ends 17 seconds later when the plane hits the
ground. But what happened when the captain called for full power?

If the pilot were holding full right rudder and almost full left aileron to
compensate just as the left thrust reverser came into the full on position,
the application of full power would have greatly increased the turn to the
left and would have created a huge side force on the tail and rudder
assembly which simply broke off cleanly and fluttered away. Within another
second, without the vertical tail assembly to slow the spin, the plane would
have begun to spin violently to the left about the center of gravity of the
airplane. It now was not an airplane but a giant spinning Frisbee, or maybe
a giant horizontal boomerang. Yes, you can take a scale model airplane and
holding one wing throw it like a boomerang and make it fly. I know, since I
used to do that as a kid. It works. A modern swept-wing jet aircraft with
the tail torn off is simply a boomerang with a large stick, the passenger
cabin, stuck in the middle.
Since the pilot had been holding opposite or left aileron, as soon as the
plane started to spin, the left wing would be going backwards. But with the
left aileron in the upward position the left wing becomes a lifting surface
which keeps the spinning plane level, since both wings are lifting. The
plane is now spinning horizontally with the full power from both engines
increasing the spin faster and faster until both engines break off and are
flung sideways away from the plane. As soon as the tail assembly broke away
and the spin started, the plane became like one of those spinning
centrifuges used by the astronauts for testing at high g-forces.
Within a second or so the people at the front and back of the plane were
being thrown violently away from the center of the plane with a tremendous
force. The seats with passengers in the very back of the plane were probably
ripped out of the floor and thrown to the back of the plane. The flight crew
at the front of the plane were thrown violently forward with such g-force
they were instantly rendered unconscious or killed. This would explain why
no more comments from the flight crew are heard after applying full power.
The plane was spinning horizontally to the left completely out of control.
With the engines still running at full power, they broke away ripping the
fuel tanks in both wings and Fight 587 became a flaming Frisbee. Something
which nobody, and especially none of the people who witnessed the accident,
had ever seen before. Small pieces of the airframe along with the engines
were thrown by centrifugal force away from the flaming plane, giving the
appearance of an explosion blasting parts away.

This also accounts for the many strange witness reports. I watched the news
channels live and heard many witnesses swear that they saw the left engine
come off first. Many other witnesses also were just as sure that the right
engine was the first to come off. How to account for these strange opposite
reports? Simply, all those witnesses had never seen a plane in a flat spin
before.
In a flat spin most of the plane's forward motion is stopped and the plane
is like a spinning flaming Frisbee floating in the air. The flames hid the
shape of the plane and the witnesses could not see the plane spinning, they
only saw a ball of fire with pieces of plane blasting out from the center.
At that point the concept of right or left engine no longer has any meaning,
they are both going in the same circle. Thus depending on where the witness
observer was standing when the first engine dropped off, half of the people
would see it as going to the right and the other half would see it as going
to the left. Thus both groups of observers were correct in reporting what
they saw, they only misinterpreted what it meant.
There were even professional pilots who reported they saw the plane in a
"spinning nose dive." Is it possible that they were also mistaken? Is it
possible the plane was not in a nose dive but was actually spinning flat
with one wing going backwards, all caused by a thrust reverser actuated in
flight? Since the other pilots reported they saw a flaming spinning plane
arcing into the ground, and since they too probably had never seen a plane
in a flat spin, they simply assumed what they saw was a spinning plane
nosing into the ground. Is it possible to prove that it was not a plane
nose-diving into the ground but a flat spin caused by a terrorist? Yes.

When the plane began the flat spin right after the tail assembly broke off
over Jamaica Bay, the passengers in the front and back of the plane would
experience high g-forces which threw them to the front and back of the
plane. But those passengers in the center of the plane between the two
engines and over the wings would simply spin around with no lateral
g-forces. They would just spin around similar to sitting and spinning on a
rotating piano stool. For them the plane simply floated downward as they
rotated. What would happen to them?
According to a statement made by New York mayor Giuliani in a news
conference on Wednesday November 14th, the rescue workers recovered 262
bodies including "a man still holding a baby." How is that possible if the
plane had nose-dived into the ground? A nose dive into the ground would have
produced such a violent forward force that all objects in the plane would
have been thrown forward with most of the seats ripped out of the floor.
Certainly no man can be strong enough to hold on to a baby through that
force, unless instead the plane was in a  flat spin.

For the passengers in the center of the plane the force would have been
downward as the plane hit the ground and the baby would be simply forced
deeper into the man's lap as he sat in the passenger seat. Is that
sufficient evidence to prove the plane was in a flat spin at impact with the
earth and the crash was caused by a thrust reverser being actuated in
flight? Yes. It could not have been a forward nose dive. Further evidence is
shown by the fact that on 
the many live news videos of the crash scene as the firemen are putting out
the
flames, a large section of the central portion of the plane is lying on the
ground
almost intact but in flames.

If the flaming spinning Frisbee of Flight 587 had impacted the ground in a
flat spin the front and back ends of the plane would have impacted with high
rotating speed and thrown pieces of the plane, including the Flight Data
Recorder in the rear of the plane many blocks away. But the center of the
plane would be left intact. Analysis of the debris field would show material
from the front of the plane went in one direction while material from the
back of the plane went in the opposite direction. Is there clear evidence
for sabotage by a terrorist?  Yes. 
But it seems the FBI does not want to know. Maybe the airlines, especially
American Airlines, do not want anybody to know they are so easily vulnerable
to terrorist attack. For whatever reason, it seems the NTSB and the FBI do
not want to know what happened to Flight 587. The clear evidence for the
flat spinning impact is shown by the condition of the passengers and seats
in the front and rear of the plane compared to the conditions in the almost
intact center portion of the plane.
Is the NTSB going to reassemble the plane parts to investigate that? 
According to NTSB Chairman Marion Blakey in the news conference 
on Tuesday the13th, the NTSB was not going to reassemble the plane 
for analysis. The two engines are being sent under sealed bonded 
cover to American's Tulsa, Okla. facility for disassembly and 
analysis. But it would seem the engines were not the cause of the 
crash, so that is an investigative dead end. The real evidence, the 
conditions of the cabin and fuselage which would show and prove the 
plane crashed while in a flat spin, is simply going to be carted away 
and tossed in the trash. The FBI will never find the terrorist who 
caused the crash, if they are not looking for one.

----------- Marshall Smith

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