Probably the best-known Airbus crash is American Airlines Flight 587, which simply fell out of the sky overhead Jamaica Bay, just after departing JFK Airport in New York. None of the media stories made sense, and neither did any of the bits of wreckage. THe media was peddling garbage, as I noted at the time:
"What cannot be explained away by the NTSB or FAA is how or why the stabilizer parted company with the aircraft at precisely the point where it joins the fuselage proper. Look at the enlarged photograph very carefully. There are absolutely no dents, scratches, on the leading edge or on the panels. This proves the vertical stabilizer was not struck by any other object, in turn proving it was the first component to detach from the aircraft.
"Trickier still for the NTSB, FAA and Airbus Industries, will be explaining to the general public why, with prima facie evidence proving catastrophic separation along a critical attachment line, the FAA and Airbus Industries failed to immediately ground all Airbus A300-600 models worldwide. This in order to conduct black light inspections of the stabilizer spars, panels, attachment pins, bolts and other critical components.
"Not only is grounding of this nature a normal operating procedure, it is also a legal requirement. Most readers will remember that all Concorde aircraft were grounded for more than a year after the crash of Air France 4590 at Paris. Concorde's grounding was based mostly on speculation, and partly on trivial circumstantial evidence, flimsier by far than the prima facie evidence already existing in the case of American Airlines Flight 587.
"In order not to ground all Airbus A300-600 series, the NTSB, FAA and Airbus Industries would have to be convinced that the reason for the crash of Flight 587 was strictly unique, a one-off that could not occur under similar flight conditions to any other Airbus A300-600 worldwide. The only reason unique enough to fit this requirement is an act of terrorism."
American terrorism, perhaps? Look at the timing, and more importantly look very closely at events during the preceding three months. Do you remember those giant Boeing airliners slicing through the towers of the World Trade Center? Yes, of course you do, as does the rest of the world courtesy of American television. The problem for America is that the anchor men kept saying "Boeing" over and over again.
It was the worst possible publicity Boeing could have. Time after time on a hundred TV channels, millions watched on in horror as BOEINGS, yes BOEINGS ripped through the towers, killing hundreds of women and children. If you want your wife and children to die, just send them for a flight on a BOEING!
Even now in Australia, four years after the event, we regularly see that famous video clip of Flight 175 (a Boeing 767) tearing through the South Tower, spraying Jet A1 fuel as it rips through the glass framework. It chills the blood, and several people have told me they will never fly in a Boeing again. The entire 911 incident was very bad news for Boeing Corporation, which decided to fight back with a bit of counter-propaganda and fear.
And so it was that less than three months later, American Airlines 587, an Airbus 300-600, entered a ballistic trajectory and impacted (almost impossibly) on a narow isthmus of land called Rockaway Beach. Blazing Jet A1, gory body parts, and bit of mangled fuselage were everywhere on very public display.
"The tragic accident, which took the lives of at least five Rockaway residents as well as all of the 265 people on the aircraft, was a flashback for many to September 11, when more than 65 Rockaway residents lost their lives.
"The trauma of that day is still so fresh in my memory that it seems like only yesterday," says one resident who saw the plane, its wings in flames and its tail missing pass over The Sunset Diner, where he was eating breakfast. "All I could think of was "Oh, God, not again."
As we have grown to expect, the American media made a very big fuss about this unfortunate and apparent 'accident', pointing out repeatedly that Airbuses can crash too, in an equally spectacular and highly-targeted fashion befitting the WTC Boeings. Not only that, but for the first time ever, tame journalists started to encourage public suspicion of the enormously strong carbon fiber composites used in all advanced Airbus construction.