And the final result is......

[YankssRule]

Flight 587 crash
laid to pilot error

BY RUSS BUETTNER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER


Karen Tavarez is comforted by her sister, Cindy, yesterday after watching a reconstruction of takeoff and tragic crash of American Flight 587, which went down Nov. 12, 2001, killing Tavarez's mother and 264 others.

An American Airlines jet crashed in Queens three years ago because the co-pilot made an "unnecessary and aggressive" maneuver that snapped off the plane's tail, investigators said yesterday.
First Officer Sten Molin jerked the Airbus 300-600's rudder back and forth four times within seconds in an unnecessary attempt to escape the rough air from another jet, the National Transportation Safety Board found.

The NTSB also blamed an overly sensitive rudder system on the Airbus and flawed pilot training by American for the crash that killed 265.

Less than two minutes after taking off from Kennedy Airport on Nov. 12, 2001, American Flight 587 crashed into Belle Harbor, Queens, killing all 260 people aboard and five more on the ground - the second-worst aviation disaster in U.S. history. Coming two months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, many initially feared terrorists had struck again. But NTSB investigators, working with the FBI, quickly ruled that out, said investigator John O'Callaghan.

"If the first officer had stopped reacting, allowing the rudder to neutralize, the accident would not have occurred," said NTSB investigator Malcolm Brenner.

Investigators found that Molin had twice before overreacted to turbulence in the same way.

Yesterday, Maximo Ramirez, who lost his niece, Mikaela Montalvo de Garcia, and her daughter, Indira Cueva, said he still believes terrorists are responsible.

"That pilot, with all his experience, he's the one to blame?" asked Ramirez. "If that's the case, they need to ground all the planes - all the 300s - and train the pilots all over again."

NTSB's $3.7 million crash probe found that the flames spotted by many witnesses were probably ignited fuel spewing from the rear of the rudderless jet - not from a terror attack.

American pilots had been wrongly trained to use the rudders, controlled with two foot pedals, to get out of trouble, according to NTSB staff investigator David Ivy.

Ivy said the rudder should only be used during takeoff or landing in a cross-wind. Asked whether Molin could have righted the plane using only the movable portion of the main wing, Ivy said: "Yes sir. That would be enough."

Compounding the problem, the newer generation of Airbus 300s had more sensitive rudder controls than the previous version - or any other commercial jet. But pilots weren't warned.

American and Airbus, fighting over liability in lawsuits by victims' families, issued angry statements blaming each other.

American charged Airbus had failed to share information about the rudder. "If Airbus had shared what it knew from three prior incidents and accidents, the 587 tragedy would have been prevented," the statement said.

Airbus spokesman Clay McConnell told The Associated Press that Airbus had warned American after a 1997 incident that pilots shouldn't use rudders to regain control, but American didn't tell its pilots.

[sengelin]

I have a hard time accepting the "if you push the rudder pedal too far the tail will fall off and it will be all the pilot's fault" explanation. Shouldn't Airbus make planes whose tails won't fall off, even if the rudder pedal is pushed all the way? I'm sure they do now... this plane was old... but isn't it more than a little stupid to build a plane that the pilot can crash simply by pushing a rudder pedal too far?

[JPenny]

What are your comments on this?

[spleisher]

Ray, feel free to chime in on this.. I figured since it is on the main board, I will take a brief stab at it.

With this particular accident, as with many aviation accidents, there are primary causes, as well as many other contributing factors. Often, aircraft acccidents are the result of a series of increasingly unlikely events occuring in succession, or over time which, in the end, create a dangerous situation.

In this case, it looks like the rudder system in the A300 is particularly "sensitive", lending it more toward this type of problem. Additionally, pilots at American were given training on recovery from upset situations, and they were told to use the rudder, but were never told in so many words that using the rudder in this manner is not acceptable. So, in the heat of the moment, the pilot used the rudder in a manner that was, unfortunately, dangerous to the structural integrity of the aircraft.

Please understand folks, airplanes are built to EXTREMELY rigorous construction safety standards! Airbus is no exception. There are thousands of Airbuses out there flying every day, and they are perfectly good airplanes.

The issue is this.... A jet airplane is an VERY large piece of machinery traveling at a VERY rapid speed. There is a LOT of force placed on the control surfaces of an aircraft. The problem is, in this particular instance, the rudder was moved all the way to the stopping point back and forth, creating a MASSIVE amount of force on the tail of the airplane. You can talk to a million airline pilots, and they will all tell you that such use of the rudder is not a good idea.

We also now have a bit of a battle and a bit of finger pointing going on between Airbus and American. This is unfortunate, but predictable. The ket thing to understand here is that it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that any pilot would try to use a rudder again in this manner with the memory of American 587 in their mind. The unfortunate thing is that something this tragic had to happen for everyone to come to that clear understanding of rudder use.

As far as devices that limit the amount of rudder throw on an airplane, they do exist. Ray, perhaps you could provie further insight into exactly how they work on different airliners and what, if anything, makes the rudder of the A300 unique from those of other airliners.

Scott

[CaptainStark]

Some thoughts..

First, in 25 year of flying, I have only gotten on the rudders for wake turbulence while flying the C-130. On occasion, we used 15 second takeoff separation during formation takeoffs and sas a result your aircraft was deep into the preceding planes wake from the minute you left the ground. Props do funny things in turbulence and occasionally a "little bit" of gentle rudder would help you get out of the wake. Keep in mind, we had the ailerons jammed all the way fighting the roll and the only thing left was a little rudder to yaw us away from the tornado and get us into clean air. At times, we were along for the ride, out of control waiting for some yaw to spit us out the side of the wake rotor. Strangely, it was fun after awhile.

Since I started flying swept wing jets, I have been in wake many times. I can't remember a time I used the rudders. If this guy had a history of flailing on the pedals, someone should have pulled him aside. The mass of a jetliner is too large to move with rapid control inputs.

We used to send the 737's in the Air Force down the the USAF Flight Test School at Edwards AFB. There, the student test pilots would put the planes through tightly prescribed tests to see if there results matched the Boeing test results. One test involved moving the yoke forward and aft until the plane was going exactly opposite of the pilot inputs. This was called the "Phugoid test." It proves that rapid inputs are innefective, though that was not the purpose of the test.

Another test that was accomplished there as well as by check pilots at the base was a rudder damper test. We'd turn off the yaw damper (keeps the plane from wandering back and forth -a widely known phenomena of swept wing planes). We ended up going stop to stop on the pedals and then turned on the yaw damper to see if it stopped the yaw swings in less than two cycles. It always did. We never lost a rudder but we were moving the rudder smoothly in the natural cycle of the airframe stop-to-stop. As far as I know, they are still doing that test.

Aibus certifies their aircraft to an international engineering standard the USA accepts. Airbus vertical stabs are all composite (non-metallic) --even the spar (main structural beam taking the loads and transferring them to the fuselage).

In the USA, the vertical stab can be composite -but the spar MUST be metal. That is solely because the attach point where the vertical stab spar attaches to the fuselage MUST be secure. In the Airbus, the composite spar separated from the metal attachment "shoe" and came off the plane. The shoe remained attached with a piece of the spar and some composite pieces attached. Given that Airbus uses all composite spars in all their aircraft, they naturally support blaming the pilot and I think, based on his technique, this might well be in order. What he reportedly did was just odd and I cannot explain it for the life of me. I have never seen or heard of a pilot using this technique in all my years aloft.

Are Airbus aircraft safe? Sure they are, assuming the composite components have not been tasked beyond their limits. That is one bad thing about composites, they look great from the outside right before they fail. Metal gives you hints. All newer jetliners are using pieces and parts that are made of composite materials. This technology is here to stay.

Fortunately, new techniques for inspection are available and should make inspection of composite components much more reliable and easy.


Ray:ray