Another plane down in New York

WMUR-TV (local ABC station) reports that a plane sitting on the runway at JFK watching flight 597 take off saw a smoke trail coming from one of the engines. There are two crash sites--the engine came down in one area and the rest of the plane in another area, confirming some sort of major engine failure as the cause of the crash.
I just hope that it was just a mechanical problem and that the engine/plane wasn't sabotaged.
KJP

 

Another speedier CNN Site:
http://robots.cnn.com/
My wife is a flight attendant for AA.... Flying home from Dallas today, but haven't heard from her yet. This sucks.

 

http://www.msnbc.com/news/656340.asp
This page as some info too. If you are trying to find out about someone on the flight, the webpage provides this number: 1-800-245-0999 .
"Witnesses said the jet’s left engine exploded as the aircraft climbed for altitude and fell to the ground several blocks away from the area where the main body of the jet crashed. The engine landed in the backyard of a three-story Victorian home and set the building on fire, but was quickly extinguished. There were no casualties there, officials said.
The flight was scheduled to leave at 8:00 a.m. and arrive in Santo Domingo at 12:48 p.m., but the takeoff was delayed until 9:15 a.m. for unknown reasons.
Check back for additional details on this breaking story."

 

I'm sitting in Manhattan listening to local radio. There isn't much hard information yet; reporters are having difficulty reaching the site.
Both American Airlines and the Bush administration plan to hold press conferences within the next hour. Meanwhile, the local airports are shut down, bridges and tunnels in and out of Manhattan are either shut down or impassable, and the city is on even higher alert than what is normal these days (hard to imagine).
M.

 

Sorry, I had some problems with the URL I was going to display. You can visit MSNBC.com, click on the story, and then click the video link.
[Edited last by TyC on November 12, 2001 at 11:15 AM]

 

Unless the engine had an uncontained failure or when it fell off it took a lot of the wing with it, why would it cause the plane to go down?
I thought one of the criteria for getting an airliner certificated was that it had to be able to maintain flight (albeit slow and crippled) unless it's able to land.
Now if it's an uncontained failure, then.......
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[Edited last by Scott Strang on November 13, 2001 at 06:03 PM]

 

Ari Fleischer just finished a press conference at the White House. Most of it was stressing how much they don't know at this point. The current administration position is that this doesn't look like a terrorist attack, but that's subject to receipt of further information.
M.

 

Scott - I imagine (now this is purely engineering speculation) that if a plane's engine fell off then the aircraft would be too unstable (out of balance) to maintain flight. An engine failing and an engine falling off are two different things.
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Bill

 

During flight they can compensate for an engine failure,
but during a takeoff I would think that the loss of power
to one side of the aircraft would be devastating.

 

The DC-10 crash in Chicago was caused my an engine mount failure immediately after takeoff. Airplanes are very vulnerable then - they're using a lot of power and are climbing at a relatively low speed. When the thrust from one side goes away the pilot may lose control momentarily, stall (fly too slow to maintain flight) and be unable to recover.
Takeoff and landing are the dangerous parts of a flight.
In 1959 or therabouts there was a midair collision over NY and a jet went down in the city... this could be an accident.
At the very least, this may get us an effective airport security bill.

 

American Airlines just finished a briefing, but they don't have any hard information. Their position is that they don't yet know what caused the crash.
M.

 

I'm no pilot, but as Larry referred to, I believe a plane might be able to take off on one engine. Several variables come into effect I'm sure, such as the weight of the aircraft, the thrust being generated by the operating engine and maybe most importantly...the skill of the flight crew.
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--Mike
Amazon Hot 100 DVD's

 

The Airbus 300 is certified to be able to take off, fly, and land on one engine in the event of engine failure. This involves engineering of not only the required thrust to lift and propel the plane, but also of the control surfaces to automatically compensate for the off-axis thrust of single-engine flight.
However, as Bill pointed out, an engine failing to operate and an engine dropping off the plane are two completely different things. It’s not likely that uncontained, catastrophic engine failure (or whatever event caused the engine to drop) would have occurred in such a way as to surgically remove the engine from the wing without severely damaging the wing as well. It’s extremely likely that control surfaces on the wing were demolished, damaged, or severed from their control lines as a result of the engine dropping off, which would make the craft completely unairworthy.
Could there have been a worse time or place for this accident to have happened?

 

When the DC-10 crashed in Chicago a rear engine mount failed - that caused the engine - at takeoff power - to twist up and over the top of the wing, taking out the hydraulics.

 

First, my sympathies to those involved. I hope no-one on the board is affected.
BBC news and radio are reporting the Flight Data Recorder has been recovered.
Regarding the ability of an aircraft to fly with an engine missing:
I *believe* that yes, to be certified for passenger carraige, an aircraft MUST be able to fly on one engine (don't know for four engine aircraft, it may be 2 engines). I also believe that the A300-600 is capable of taking off, landing and normal flight with one engine. HOWEVER, if an engine failed catastrophicallly (as appears to have happened in this case) then the sudden change in thrust pattern/aerodynamics and general aircraft behaivour would be very difficult, if not impossible to counteract. As has already been said, the take-off/landing point of a flight is the most susceptable to problems.
I personally do not believe that this incident is terrorist related, but a tragic accident. I surely hope that I'm right- and it feels strange to be saying that, but I think you all know what I mean.
BrianW: Yes, there could have been worse times and places for it to happen, but let's not go there: it's bad enough as it is. The fact that it happened in the New York city area could be an enourmous coincidence.

 

I've had NPR on all day, in the background. Currently, 3:43 EST, it's believed that this was caused by a mechanical failure (and not another attack). But, this is still early and nothing definite is said.
I feel for the community impacted. By itself, this is devastating. But two months after the terrorist attacks, just when things were seeming to get a little normal again, this is immensely worse, I feel.

 

Well, I can imagine the conjecture if this unfortunately event happened yesterday, Nov 11th....
I haven't seen or heard any radio reports today, other than the usual internet news sources, but I hope everybody here has made it out of this one. My thoughts go out again to the passengers and crew and perhaps the people on the ground waking up to this.
Jay
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Obscuria.

 

Regarding the engine issues...
A number of aviation experts appearing on the cable news channels claimed that many commercial airliners, and this one specifically, are designed such that the engine may come off in catastrophic engine failures and the plane can fly without it, perhaps better than with retaining an engine on fire, including in a take off situation. However, they noted that catastrophic engine failures can manifest differently, and that if the engine failed in such a manner as to do massive damage to the wing and/or the hydraulics contained therein, then control sans the engine is obviously badly compromised.
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