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Another Plane Down in New York
Another plane has crashed, this time in Queens. You can read a blurb at Yahoo.
CNN.com isn't responding for me. LaGuardia, Newark and JFK are closed now. Update: 11/12 14:54 GMT by T : New reports indicate that the plane was departing from JFK, not arriving. Also, CNN has confirmed that this was American Airlines flight 587, an Airbus A 300. Update: 11/12 14:57 GMT by T : Further information is that the plane was en route to the Dominican Republic, and that the disaster actually involves two crash sites, not just one -- an engine fell from the plane some distance from the fuselage.
Just to let you all know - as off press time for this posting, nobody knows whether this was an accident, or another terrorist attack.
Let's not jump to conclusions.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Everyone knows what everyone is thinking at this moment, possible cause for the accident.
They have the public scared, even if this had nothing to do with terrorism, more people will be afraid.
Step 1: Take 3 deep breaths.
Step 2: Find out if it was terror or something else entirely.
Step 3: Take deliberate and appropriate action.
Moderators, please mod knee jerk posts accordingly...
mh
As bad as this sounds, I hope it's just that the plane and mechanical problems.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
CBC
According to ABC News (I got a little bit of the vieo blurb before it totally crapped out on me)
eyewitnesses are reprting that an angine exploded on the approach to JFK, and that several buildings are on fire.
My Girlfriends family lives in queens, as does the family of someu very close friends of mine . . . . here's to hoping they're all okay.
----
One of us needs to stick ones' head in a bucket of ice water.
- Hobbes
They do go down by themselves now and then after all... .. the seventh one down in the last few months..
But this is what
it's an airbus A-300 jet, according to MSNBC. or it's a flying saucer, according to Fox News ... :)
---
Mindy: "Well...desserts aren't always right." Homer: "But they're so sweet!"
sorry here http://www.skynews.co.uk/skynews/storytemplate/sto rytoppic/0,,30000-1035003,00.html
Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You - ONLY HARDER!
The greatest terrorist attack on the US happened just two months ago and you have the gall to be discussing "Another Plane down in New York"?
GET SOME PRIORITIES!!
Their coverage is here.
Common sense is a set of prejudices built up over a lifetime
CNN just said that it was an Airbus 300 that nosedived into Queens. At least 4 homes are on fire.
No word on cause.
~=Keelor
As opposed to being "rerouted", like before.
I was thinking of going across the office area I'm in to check out CNN but I thought twice, I have better things to do, although there's no word yet I'm betting this has nothing to do with "terrorist" attacks, just another plane crash? If you want to call plane crashes routine.... I'm sure (ok, I hope) this is just a non-event that the media will be all over, news at eleven.
Nope, now it's an Airbus.
Don't ay any attention to anything until the end of the day on something like this. No one really knows anything, and the newspeople need to have something to say...
Buildings burning.
p &a ddr=&city=Rockaway+Park&state=NY&slt=40.580000&sln =-73.836700&mlt=40.578000&mln=-73.844100&zip=&coun try=us&mag=9&cs=7&BFClient=&BFKey=&poi=&poititle=& map.x=107&map.y=204
Yahoo map of impact zone
http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?BFCat=&Pyt=Tma
Robots.cnn.com is a load balancing mirror for CNN. How long till they go barebones again?
Current headline:
An American Airlines plane has crashed in the Queens borough of New York City. The FAA identifies the flight as American flight 587, an Airbus A300 from JFK airport to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Thick smoke was billowing over the area, and local media reported several houses on fire.
The BBC news site is still responding, albeit slowly. news.bbc.co.uk Escoutaire When a dream dreams the dreamer, the dreams the real.
When a dream dreams the dreamer, the dreams the real.
I liked that CNN went into some low-bandwidth mode where most of the information on the site had been dropped completely. Looks like they are starting to learn their lesson about how traffic comes to the site. Too bad they still can't handle a sudden spike.
For example: Canada's Globe & Mail
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Yeah, from the sketchy reports so far, it doesn't look much like a terrorist hijacking.
This plane was apparently inbound to JFK, 5 miles out. Previous hijackings were departing west coast-bound jets.
ABC radio is saying this was an Airbus, not a Boeing.
As usual, this soon afterwards it is a lot of rumor, speculation and semi-reliable live news broadcast reports.
http://robots.cnn.com/2001/US/11/12/newyork.crash/ index.html
There's a direct URL, load balancing.
Did every news site return all the extra servers and bandwidth they acquired during the 9/11 attack? Suddenly I can't get to cnn, yahoo news, and many other sites. What happened to their extra capacity?
creation science book
First people hear the initial incorrect reports (incoming flight, 767), then other people post more up to date information. Then the first wave berates the second wave for not having the correct info. Then they just look stupid for getting knee-jerk news reports anyhow.
Slow down, don't post so damn quick.
This Story at the BBC is up and down like a YoYo.
BBC Radio 1 is reporting nothing at present - actually playing 'heaven is a halfpipe'!
http://www.msnbc.com/m/lv/default.asp?0cv=c642
"Recta non toleranda futuaris nisi irrisus ridebis"
Since the CNN site is getting hammered (Don't they ever learn?) Here's the text:
American Airlines jet crashes in New York
November 12, 2001 Posted: 9:54 AM EST (1454 GMT)
NEW YORK (CNN) -- An American Airlines jet crashed Monday in the New York City borough of Queens.
CNN confirmed the plane was American Airlines Flight 587 from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The plane was an Airbus A-300. American Airlines did not immediately release the number of passengers on the flight.
A New York police spokesman said the plane crashed in the Rockaways section of Queens. At least four houses were on fire, and a huge plume of smoke could be seen rising from the site.
All three New York City-area airports -- Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark -- closed after the crash, according to CNN affiliate WCBS in New York. Mayor Rudy Giuliani declared a Level One emergency, mobilizing all available police, fire and emergency personnel.
For those that don't live in NYC there is a map of queens here
FYI: Far rockaways are very near JFK.
Plane crash in NYC
An American Airlines plane has crashed in the Queens borough of New York City. The FAA identifies the flight as American flight 587, an Airbus A300 from JFK airport to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Thick smoke was billowing over the area, and local media reported several houses on fire.
http://kered.org
to reply to my own post, CNN has a different report now:
s h/ index.html
CNN confirmed the plane was American Airlines Flight 587 from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The plane was an Airbus A-300. American Airlines did not immediately release the number of passengers on the flight.
http://robots.cnn.com/2001/US/11/12/newyork.cra
http://europe.cnn.com/2001/US/11/12/newyork.crash/ index.html
It was an A300 heading to the Dominican Republic.
Joy, great timing for Amtrak to get disolved. :-(
I'm watching this on TV right now (cnn.com still not responding). Some of the initial details have changed:
/leaving/ JFK for Dominican Rep.
- Not a 767, an Airbus A-300 (seats around 300 people)
- It was American Airlines flight 587;
- The crash site is a residential/shopping area (Rockaway Beach Blvd.)
- FAA issued an advisory saying that there is no indication (yet) of a terrorist attack.
- Bridges and tunnels in NYC have been closed.
------
--- I shall always be wherever I've been. - Winston Niles Rumfoord
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Queens police confirm an aircraft crashed Monday in the Far Rockaways neighborhood of the New York City borough.
The spokesman could not confirm the type of plane but said it crashed in the Rockaways at 122nd Street and Rockaway Beach Boulevard.
WCBS-TV reported that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said it was an American Airlines 767 presumably on approach to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. The station showed pictures of a huge plume of smoke.
karma already @ 50 - not trying to be a whore so relax...
http://kered.org
Details are sketchy, but WNYC (back online!) reports at least 4 buildings on fire, and some concern that there is a gasoline station in the vicinity. Crashsite is an suburban neighborhood, homes, schools, etc. Capacity of the plane is 285 souls.
A friend of mine just said "Isn't is horrible that we can now think 'I hope it was just a plane crash' when something like this happens?"
From the location of the crash and proximity to the airport it looks like it might have just been an accident. If not, then it is yet another nail in the terrorist's coffins.
" Airplane crash == terrorist attack"
Excuse me but that is just plain bullshit.
It is actually quite normal for planes to crash every now and then, therefore it is most likely to be an accident.
However, through your statement all you are doing is spreading fear. Simply by doing that you are *helping* terrorists, as spreading fear is (by definition) their main objective.
Stay cool. The chance of getting hit by a terrorist attack is smaller than the chance of getting hit by a 4WD because the driver was so afraid of being hit by a terrorist that he/she was not paying attention.
This is yet again proof of why chat groups, bulletin boards and internet newsgroups are useless as a "breaking story" news source. It's been less than 45 minutes since the crash and already people are posting "facts" that were proven wrong minutes later or are providing mindless speculation. I'll grant you that CNN isn't much better in the first hour of any major story, but at least on TV the incorrect data doesn't stick around for days after the truth is known.
What you've said so far: It was a 767. It was inbound to NY. It crashed downtown. It might have been terrorists.
What CNN is saying as of a minute ago: It was an Airbus A300. It was leaving NY on an international flight. It crashed 10 miles from the airport, out in Rockaway (Long Island).
Let's leave the journalism to the journalists, shall we?
An American Airlines Jet, probably an Airbus, was headed to the Dominican Republic and ran into some kind of trouble after takeoff. It tried to return to the airport, but could not make. Maybe an engine exploded or was on fire. FAA does NOT believe it was a terroist attack or any kind of hijacking.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
Hmmm...so there were no terrorists in the flight path armed with SAMs?
Given that neither reaction nor inaction will prevent further attacks, which is the better course to take? Consider these points:
- Which course will polarise world opinion, leading previously moderate people to support radical organisations? (Clue: look at Pakistan.)
- Which course will kill innocent people abroad, in addition to those who have already died in the US? (Clue: look at Afghanistan.)
- Which course will perpetuate a cycle of violence and be used to justify further attacks? (Clue: look at the Balkans, Northern Ireland, Israel and Palestine.)
Is your desire to feel like you're doing something worth the consequences?FYI Veteran's Day was yesterday.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
You guys are up no matter what... thanks for some consise info.
For you europeans out there, sky.co.uk is MIA now, as is the BBC's site.
Good luck getting info... maybe try IRC.openprojects.org #worldtradecenter. That's where I am.
-spool32
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
the plane ...
linky linky"
Runnin' On Empty
CNN may be down but the Washington Post is up and has a photo.
Abcnews.go.com appears to be down.
MSNBC is up with coverage.
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
Notice that this time the newssites was _very_ quick on going to a light version of their pages.
They have obviously learned from prior experiences.
Dow Jones however dropped 200 points faster than any newssite could update their pages. Consider the impact on US-airtraffic.
Wonder how much time it will take until someone goes bankrupt and wether it will be a US or some other national agency that drops first.
Rangle
It's Shakespeare.
Julius Ceasar Act III Scene i:
"Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial."
It is Athony's speech after Ceasar is killed. As you can see in the rest of the phrase it is about revenge for a "foul deed."
Why do so many people seem to think that not attacking Afghanistan means "doing nothing"?
We have alot of options besides engaging in inapropriate military action.
Why inapropriate? Donald Rumsfeld said that we're unlikely to catch Bin Laden. Many members of the Taliban are no longer in the Taliban and will never be caught. Besides all of these peopl already invaded Afghanistan. Neither Bin Laden nor the Taliban are Afghani. We are bombing innocent civilians who happened to have the misfortune of being invaded by people who attacked the US as well.
New York Times, 7:03, 11/12/01:
November 12, 2001
Homes in Queens on Fire
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
EW YORK -- An American Airlines Airbus A300 crashed Monday morning in the Queens section of New York, and buildings reportedly were on fire in the neighborhood.
The plane crashed shortly after 9 a.m. and thick, black smoke could be seen miles away.
All metro area airports were closed following the crash, in the Rockaways section of Queens.
The mayor canceled his morning events and headed to the scene.
One eyewitness reported debris falling from sky, and told the Fox News Channel four homes were on fire.
Another told CNN he was 40 blocks away and saw "Just a lot of smoke. Tons and tons of smoke. You can see emergency vehicles heading to area. Lots of people are standing in the streets. It's very tense."
The cause of the crash was not immediately known.
The crash came two months after the attack on the World Trade Center, which was destroyed by two Boeing 767s hijacked out of Boston's Logan Airport. One of the planes was operated by American, the other by United.
An explanation of how the U.S. got into this mess: What should be the Response to Violence?
Bush's education improvements were
The problem is that simply firing a few billion $ worth of ammunition into the Afghan wastelands does not only accomplish nothing, it actually worsens the situation by driving even more desperate people into the hands of the terrorist groups.
Unless we start caring about the causes (Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iraq etc.) and not simply about the symptoms, we can already mark January 11.
And if this crash wasn't a terrorist attack, but a simple accident, it changes nothing about the underlying facts.
Doesn't matter, Slashdot is my source for breaking news from now on.
Reality has a liberal bias
NBC is reporting that 246 people were ticketed for this flight along with 9 crewmembers. No telling how many people were in the vicinity on the ground, I imagine this part of the Queens is quite densely populated.
I'm not sure which way I jump on this issue (honestly), so I'm only presenting options here. However...
Large quantities of the Muslim world are currently convinced that the USA and UK are out to destroy Islam and are just using this as a pretext. So, by attacking Afghanistan, we're currently providing a motivation for them to join organisations like al Quaeda (sp?) and increasing the available pool of terrorists. As a direct consequence of our attacking them, it's easier for them to attack us. Had we not attacked them (whether you believe it's justified retaliation or not), they'd have a smaller volunteer pool.
I have no sympathy with terrorism but I can see why people might be motivated this way.
BTW, there's also the other question of whether the current campaign can ever achieve its aims, even if they're clearly defined. I can't see that it can achieve what people want it to, or that the aims are nailed down particularly tightly...
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Quote from CNN: "The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the plane was carrying 246 passengers and nine crew members. "
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
* American Airlines flight crashes on takeoff in NYC borough of Queens
* FAA: American Flight 587 -- Airbus A300 -- from JFK airport to Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic
* NYC Port Authority: 246 passengers, 9 crew
* All NYC area airports closed, bridges and tunnels leading into city closed
* Affiliate WCBS reports at least 4 buildings on fire
* New York Fire Department dispatches 44 trucks, 200 firefighters
They'd have to be... the only quick response teams left are the ones who lived through WTC.
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
Several European national carriers are bankrput or on the edge of it.
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
12 Buildings on fire now.
- sigs are for wimps.
Thank you, and God bless America.
For those having problems connecting to CNN.com, just a hint. asia.cnn.com. Its what us Australians are suppost to look at, even though it isn't hosted in Australia (its in the same place as www.cnn.com), except the only difference is it seems to be responding and able to handle traffic. And yes, that page lists all the world storys.
what is a level one emergency? Is that a bigger or smaller emergency than level two? Anyone know about this sort of thing?
After all, if nobody thinks that this could be terrorism, why is every NYC area airport closed? JFK, LGA and EWR are all fully operational at the moment, but have been forced to close. That is not standard procedure. Or at least it wasn't before 11 Sep 2001.
There is probably a greater connection to this story out of Nepal then the stories comming out of Afganistan. At least for the former story they both involved planes and crashes of planes. The connection is therefor obvious.
yeah, but from what I understand, they are flying continuous CAP over Manhattan now anyway. Not sure that means that they were alerted somehow to some situation with the AA flight.
He's talking about Canada, even if they aren't the cause of the crash, we still need to nuke them.
Hammer of Truth
CNN's European site is working fine.
From a local TV station's site -- often a good secondary source of info when the big boys get overwhelmed.
t ai l.html
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/1069613/de
American Airlines Plane Crashes In New York
Four Homes On Fire
POSTED: 9:30 a.m. EST November 12, 2001
UPDATED: 10:13 a.m. EST November 12, 2001
NEW YORK -- An American Airlines Airbus A300 crashed Monday morning in the Queens section of New York, and four homes reportedly were on fire in the neighborhood in the Rockaway section of Queens.
The plane crashed shortly after 9 a.m. ET, and thick, black smoke could be scene in televised reports. It was reportedly headed to JFK, but the origin of the flight was undetermined.
Bill Schumann of the Federal Aviation Administration said there was no immediate indication of what caused the crash. He said the plane could hold up to 275 passengers, and crashed about five miles from Kennedy Airport. There were 246 passengers and 9 crewmembers aboard the flight, according to CNN.
Asked if terrorism is suspected, Schumann said that all options are open at the time and they have very little information. Defense officials said that while combat jets were flying over the sky as is routine, there were not any reports of suspicious activity or distress calls.
Television images show thick black smoke rising from the scene. The smoke was seen turning white, which could indicate that the flames were being put out.
Fox News Channel reports it was an American Airlines flight 587. All three New York City airports were closed to air travel. They include LaGuardia, JFK and Newark airports.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has canceled his morning events and is heading to the scene.
FAA said American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300, crashed. It was on its way to Santo Domingo Dominican Republic. CNN reported that the engine came down separate from the rest of the jetliner and that Giuliani confirmed that there are two separate crash sites. A witness said he saw an explosion on the side of the plane.
It was a "level 1" emergency, which means all emergency personnel are advised to go to the crash scene. All the major tunnels heading into New York have been closed.
Reports have varied throughout the morning. The FAA said there seems to be no indication of a terrorist attack.
A witness said he saw debris falling from the sky, at the scene of today's plane crash.
He told the Fox News Channel that four homes are on fire.
Another man told CNN that he was 40 blocks away, and saw "tons and tons of smoke." He said, "Lots of people are standing in the streets.
A woman who lives near the scene of the crash said she heard the engines of a plane -- "loud and low" -- before the crash.
Phyllis Paul told CNN she looked out the window to see a "silvery piece of metal" falling from the sky, several blocks away.
Then, she said, she heard an explosion.
She said she and her son went outside and saw the black smoke rising from the Queens crash site. She said it was "horrifying."
Paul said the sound of the plane gave her a "chill" -- because of what happened on Sept. 11.
The flight was an American Airlines jet, which had taken off from Kennedy Airport -- several miles from the crash site. It was headed to the Dominican Republic.
The crash came two months and a day after the attack on the World Trade Center.
The American Airlines phone number relatives information line is (800) 245-0999.
Lurking peacefully since 1997
You're preaching to the choir. I've had huge reservations about Pakistan from day one.
Having said that, I don't believe the "break the circle of violence" line either. That assumes that the other side is rational and wouldn't have done a damn thing had America not a) been in bed with Israel, b) been full of heathen Christians/Jews/Muslims who aren't *real* muslims, etc.
Funny how people assume the worst of us and the best of them. Sorry if you don't like it, but for the most part I'm for extracting bin Laden, and unfortunatly that's going to have a price, in terms of world politics and civilian deaths. Not the greatest of choices, but the best that could be expected.
Given that neither reaction nor inaction will prevent further attacks
False assumption (typical relativism approach to framing an argument).
Destroying thousands of future soldiers, exterminating another relativist culture, removing a government that provides support for terrorist camps, creating a government that feeds and cares for the Afghan people (rather than beating and killing them), telling Islam that it had better start its reformation, and sending a message to other states that sponsor terrorism that they're next does make a significant impact.
Remember Libya? Backed off after we sent a message that was stronger than words.
Read your American history. Barbary pirates. Nazis. Mexican raids. Etc. A lack of response guarantees failure. A response is not a guarantee of success, but is required to have a chance at it.
Which course will polarise world opinion, leading previously moderate people to support radical organisations? (Clue: look at Pakistan.)
Appeasement to make "other people like us" is guaranteed to fail, and furthermore, makes dirty bastards like you as guilty as the killers. Your type killed millions of Czechs by appeasing Hitler.
Which course will kill innocent people abroad, in addition to those who have already died in the US?
Discussing both options like you've proposed, how does not doing anything not kill more people abroad and in the US? Do you think OBL is done now? Clue: Look at a plane on the ground in the Bronx. Do you think more terrorists like him will follow along if we don't act? Clue: Look at the Carter presidency.
Which course will perpetuate a cycle of violence and be used to justify further attacks?
Doing nothing will. Clue: Look at your examples supplied and a culture of minimal response. Clue: Look at Syria. Have a city threatening with insurrection? Exterminate it and set an example.
Is your desire to feel like you're doing something worth the consequences?
Is your desire to be a fatalist seeing his own destruction worth the consequences to the rest of society?
For our sake, I'd encourage you to seek the closest bridge, jump and get it over with. Quit bothering us with your fascination with suicide.
10:19 Eastern Standard Time, 11/12/01
Jet Crash in NYC Borough of Queens
ABC News
Plane Down Near JFK Airport
N E W Y O R K, Nov. 12 _ An American Airlines jet departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport crashed in a heavily populated section of the New York City borough of Queens at 9:17 a.m. ET, emergency officials said, and there was no report on the number of passengers and crew on board.
The jet, an Airbus 300, departed JFK at 9:15 a.m., officials said, when it crashed into an area populated with many homes and businesses. The American Airlines web site said Flight 587 was headed for Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. The plane crashed near Beach 129th Street and Newport Avenue, in the Rockaways section of Queens. There were no reports of injuries at the scene.
Thick black smoke could be seen billowing above the crash site for miles and several buildings were said to be on fire. Emergency crews raced to the scene.
Harriet Cohen, a Queens resident who lives near the airport and about 10 blocks from the crash site, said she was eating breakfast in her home when she thought she heard the Concorde leaving the airport. After hearing a terrible bang, she told her husband: "Oh my, I think it must have broken the sound barrier." But then the house shook, Cohen said. "I looked outside, and 10 blocks from us, there was black thick smoke rising up into the sky."
Minutes after the crash, all three New York City-area airports _ Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark _ were closed. Airports in Washington, D.C., remained open.
The incident comes two months after two hijacked jets rammed into the World Trade Center in Manhattan killing about 4,500.
An explanation of how the U.S. got involved in violence: What should be the Response to Violence?
Bush's education improvements were
How can terrorism be ruled out after less than an hour?
It may well be an accident, but I would assume that the wreckage would need to be thoroughly examined to make any type of final determination.
When shit happens, I want to know about it. The incompetent boobs running CNN's website don't know how to handle something like this. Thank CmdrTaco for a website like this, that not only can get the news directly to my brain, but also allow for all of us to be reporters and share what we find out, when we get more info.
Reality has a liberal bias
* which course will lead to huge American public backlash (clue: look at polls for desire to bomb)
* which course will produce huge economic turnaround by producing a post-war upturning
* which course will produce even more arms exports that can be used against the US. (The Afghans are using American weapons, after all.)
Just pointing those out. I agree with your points more than anyone, I'd say. I'm quite openly hostile towards people ignorant enough to believe that bombing a nation prone to generating suicidal bombers will make them less of a threat (short of a genocidal solution). But the people making the decisions are not the ones looking at the big picture; they're fighting their own bubble-world discourse.
Serrious question. Yes, really. Planes are safe, full stop. You've still more chance of winning the lottery than dieing in one.
Tom.
Oh arse
Sure. OTOH, the terrorists destroy the WTC and kill the father and mother of an american child, who grows up listening to people like you saying that he shouldn't do anything about it and that he should protest any attempts to destroy the terrorists because "violence creates violence". 25 years later, that kid grows up turned into another peaceful, civilized citizen who opposes any U.S. intervention against Afghanistan or other countries... and is killed by another attack perpetrated by the terrorists that we failed to capture after the WTC.
Don't get me wrong, I do believe that the U.S. should do anything in its hands to solve the Israeli-Palestinan problem (if only to leave Bin Laden without arguments). But that doesn't exclude using the force to capture or destroy the criminals. And if you think otherwise, I invite you to step up the next time the police in your zone has a serial killer surrounded and try to talk him into giving up his evil ways, instead of letting the cops using (horror!!) physical force to arrest him.
Here's the flight tracking info from Flytecomm. Please don't kill my server. Thanks.
Thats what Ananova are saying here anyway.
Special Relativity: The person in the other queue thinks yours is moving faster.
Hell Yes!!!
Air travel is as safe as it gets. Even with the terrorist activity you are MUCH more likely to be in a car crash, or hit a deer, or trip and break your collar bone, than you are to be involved in a deadly crash on an aircraft.
SO YES!!! FLY!!! If you value your safety, you will not drive long distances when you can just as easily take a flight. Plus you'll be saving yourself tons of time. (Ok, so from Heathrow, you'd have to take a boat, but do you really want to take that long? And would it really be safer?)
Seriously, this reinforces my conviction that aircraft safety & security is going in completely the wrong direction. Why focus so heavily on trying to prevent very specific types of incident? Why not simply design aircraft on the assumption that they're going to crash (by accident or design), and build them to keep as many people alive as possible?
For example - there are parachutes, built for jet airliners, capable of safely bringing even a 747 or 757 to a safe(ish) landing, assuming enough altitude to slow the monster down.
Another example - if a package holding eggs can be dropped from the top of the Empire State Building, and have the eggs intact at the bottom, you can figure that we know a lot about air resistance with various topologies, and that we know how to make a decent bubble-wrap. It should be possible to design an aircraft skin capable of absorbing significant amounts of energy, in the event of an impact.
Lastly, aircraft are not built out of the safest of materials. Aluminium (aluminum for USians) burns with an intense ferocity. Those who remember the Falkland's War (damn it, it was a WAR, not a "Conflict") will remember the HMS Sheffield, which was built out of aluminium. One direct hit turned it into a giant, inescapable fireball. Many fireworks, and even some modern munitions, use aluminium as a component. Sure, it's light, but so are many other materials. Maybe it's time to change.
We've entered the 21st century, with aircraft that are practically designed to explode on someone sneezing the wrong way, with no possibility of survival. As ideas go, this does not sound like the brightest there has ever been.
Of course, maybe I could be wrong. Maybe people enjoy riding oversized firecrackers, with a bazillion mad-men around the world desperately wanting to light the fuse.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If you really feel this way, let me ask you:
In short, if we are a nation that claims to believe in a set of principles above all else, but we are unwilling to fight for these principles, then we are a nation of hypocrites.
This is the ananova writeup.. :P
President Bush will surely wish you a good night and tell you that he was right after all. None less than that. Of course stay alert, but also keep an eye on your beloved president
I feel sorry for all victims and all security people. Lots of internet news sites (at least here in The Netherlands) are DDoSed *again*. Has anything changed since two months ago?
From Ananova
Ananova :
Terrorism ruled out as cause of Queens crash
Terrorism has been ruled out as a cause of the Queens air crash.
Up to 246 passengers are thought to have been aboard the American Airlines Airbus A300.
All New York area airports have been closed following the crash, in the Rockaways area of Queens, a residential neighbourhood under the JFK airport flight path.
Bridges and tunnels into New York have also been closed but the Federal Aviation Authority has ruled out terrorism as a cause.
The organisation earlier stated that the cause of the crash is not known, although there are reports the jet suffered engine failure.
Washington says US Air Force patrols over New York received no calls before the crash.
Fighters have been flying over the city's skies 24 hours a day since September 11. Crews have been told they must be prepared to shoot down any hijacked civilian aircraft if ordered to do so.
The passenger jet had taken off from John F Kennedy Airport - five to 10 miles away, when it crashed into buildings and burst into flames.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has joined rescue services at the scene. At least four buildings are said to be on a fire. One witness reported debris falling from sky and told the Fox News Channel that four homes were on fire.
Another told CNN he was 40 blocks away and saw: "Just a lot of smoke. Tons and tons of smoke. You can see emergency vehicles heading to area. Lots of people are standing in the streets. It's very tense."
It was an Airbus a300...
26X people on board...
9 crew.
I hate relaying bad news.
No, they wouldn't. Just as the previous poster said, it's not Veteran's day today, and the only thing significant about this post-Veteran's Day is that many people have the day off. Now why would a terrorist interested in killing Americans pick a day that Americans have off? I just heard on Fox News that the plane crashed very close to a school in Queens, which was incidentally closed because of Veteran's Day. Your rationale is ridiculous, so quit speculating.
CNN live closed captioning is available at #CNN_Newsfeed at chat.cnn.com.
Don't get me wrong, I do believe that the U.S. should do anything in its hands to solve the Israeli-Palestinan problem (if only to leave Bin Laden without arguments).
All indications are that what Bin Laden hates is the current Saudi government (King Fahd, pretty tyrannical and Taliban-like himself, frankly) and the U.S. support for that self-same government. While I would like to see peace in Israel/Palestine, it's not the key issue here.
Note that in Mazar-e-Sharif, women dispensed with their burqas, went to mosques, and regained the rights they had lost to the Taliban, now that the Northern Alliance has retaken the city. So have a little good news for today.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
As all the major news portals seem to be struggling under the load, check www.ananova.com - it's up, fast and stayed alive during September 11th. They seem to be up-to-the minute with their information too.
----------------------------------------
Religious war: fighting over who has the real imaginary friend.
i live in brooklyn, and i was glad to see that the sky was full of fighter jets with in 5 minutes rather then the hour+ on 9-11. i know in actuality it doesnt really help anything, but it makes the lot of us feel a little more secure, at least as secure as you can with 5000 lbs of bombs wizzing over head
--rock me like a huricane? NO rock you
Try #CNN_Newsfeed on chat.cnn.com:6667 for a live feed of closed-captions off CNN.
This article does not seem to suggest *where* they got this FAA Information. Secondly, the FAA never makes the call this fast. The most they might say is "it appears to have been engine trouble" and that would be information they got from the pilots through tower contact. And, even if it *is* engine problems, it doesn't rule out sabatoge, or explosives.
If you'd rather not dork around trying to cut and paste it all into your browser See streets here At this writing it's slow.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
An insider, possibly a mechanic, rigged the engine with a bomb. Now I'm going to stretch this a bit and say that there might have been actual hijackers on the plane, and that they were forcefully taken down... but the engine bomb still went off.
Though you don't actually need to put any kind of "bomb" into a jet engine in order to do a lot of damage. Not only is there plenty of fuel in the engine (and in the wing tanks) there is a lot of energy in the fan/compressor & turbine assembly.
Yea they should.
/. is within it's charter there.
It's right there in the logo - 'News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.'
I'm a nerd and it's news, so
On Sept 10th...no this wouldn't be 'stuff that matters' to a Geek crowd, but now it is. Geeks travel, and when something else happens that has the potential to disrupt the entire world of business travellers, it's stuff that matters.
Here's an aerial photo of 122nd and Rockaway: click!. The intersection, I believe is just east of the large building.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Well, if the engine fell out of the plane, it was probably an accident. Not for sure, of course, but i don't see how Hijackers could do that.
It might have been sabotage though...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
We all need to stop and take a few steps back. The events of the last 2 months have taken this country to the brink of hysteria and back. The mainstream press is in a feeding frenzy. They are reporting any rumor that they can get their hands on, all in the name of boosting ratings. Take a look at the last Presidential election and you will see that the self-control that the press once had has disappeared. We cannot allow their drive for money to turn us into a country full of "Chicken Little's" waiting for the sky to fall.
Stop, take a breath, and realize that things like this happen. If we allow ourselves to continue down this road, we will accomplish what no country on this planet has been able to do, bring the US to its knees. People are paralyzed by fear, and the press is feeding this fear. It is time to stop.
Yes, it is terrible when people die, but it happens everyday. Worrying about it will not change it. I believe we should find the people responsible for terrorist attacks and bring them to justice, but not at the cost of our freedom, which is where we are headed. I have heard more members of the press and the government shouting for "National ID Cards", increased security at all public functions, COMDEX banned bags from the convention floor. All of these steps are doing the terrorist work for them. If we allow these criminals to alter our way of life to the point that we cease to function, or regulate ourselves into and Orwellian nightmare then we may as well lie down and die.
Live you life as you always have. Go to work, raise your kids, spend your money, and be happy until given a legitimate reason not to be. Out of all the posts on this site, how many are from people directly affected by 09/11, who either knew someone who is missing, or has family that lost a loved one. The rest of us need to feel sympathetic to the victims and their families, but we should also feel grateful that we are alive, living in the best country on the planet, and act that way.
Any news on how the OPEC countries are hurting from the lower use of their product?
Rich
Yes, passenger planes are required to be airworthy after losing an engine. However, take-off is the most engine-intensive part of the flight. The plane is way below cruising speed, with maximum weight (full fuel tanks), and busy converting thrust into altitude.
So even though it's built to survive take-off at half power, you need a good pilot who knows what to do with a sluggish, off-balance, flying brick.
I've seen video footage of engine failures resulting in total destruction. The engines don't seperate from the wing. They're designed so that the plane can keep on flying even with total engine destruction.
Total engine destruction is the fan blades seperating. Imagine 100 blades rotating at 1000s of RPMs flying in every direction. The engine case takes the beating without the wing being damaged. The engine is destroyed but the plane keeps flying.
I don't know what this was, but it wasn't like any mechanical failure I've ever heard of.
http://kered.org
Moderators, this is now misinformative, later reports are that this was a fully fuelled outbound flight.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Don't know if this will be useful to anyone, but there have been several other crashes involving this same plane. Here's a link to a report dealing with this. -cobweb
||:|::
i think you'll find that that comment is actually his signature rather than part of his comment. i dont think he was suggesting that it was a non-event.
There are NO such parachutes. Let's do some real simple calcs. I believe a standard human parachute is 28 feet in diameter, for a human weighing 200 pounds. A fully loaded 747 is around 800,000 pounds, 4000 times as much. Let's see, square root of 4000 is roughly 64, and 64 * 28 = 1770 feet -- ONE KILOMETER!
Are you so nuts as to think that practical?
And do you think it could be deployed at several hundred miles an hour without shredding?
Dropping an egg is one thing, an airline entirely difefrent. A egg has a pretty low terminal air velocity because of the weight per surface area. Comparing this to an airliner is like saying an ant can fall safely, why can't humans? Even cats have a sufficiently low terminal velocity that once they fall past 10 stories or so, they don't fall any faster, and they still don't have a great survival rate. Let's give that cat the density of an airliner and see what happens to the terminal velocity.
Now as to material. The HMS Sheffield DID NOT BURN due to aluminum. It burned because the Exocet has an explosive warhead which scattered and ignited the remaining rocket fuel. It was not a giant inescapable fireball. Jeez, your hyperbole is incredible.
It's easy enough for you to worry about aluminum burning, but what does that have to do with airliners burning? Hey! It's the FUEL that explodes and burns, not the structure! Maybe we should all fly naked too, so our clothes won't contribute to the fire.
As for arbitrarily increasing the weight by getting rid of aluminum, common sense ought to inform you that they use expensive materials for a reason. Don't you think that if they could make heavier cheaper planes that they would? There's no secret airplane cabal conspiring to jack up the prices just to keep the bauxite miners employed. Man, they fret over new seat materials to save a pound per seat.
As for airplane design not being the brightest ideas out there, sounds to me like they've got you beat at any rate.
Infuriate left and right
This might be another way of killing Bin Laden. Right now I figure he's somewhere near laughing himeself to death at this overreaction. Please remamber that plane crashes happen, and this one does not have any of the hallmarks of terrorist action.
all of the security in the world isn't going to stop murphy's law fromm causing the occasional f*ck up. Flying is still safer than driving, but reading the news may cause a heart-attack if you attribute every tragedy to terrorism.
Let investigators do their job. In the unlikely event that they determine this to be of terrrorist cause, then we can take the appropriate actions
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
To save bandwidth for everyone and improve response times, please don't go to the BBC's high-graphics front page. Go directly to their low-graphics news page.
This way, you not only save bandwidth on the page you want to see, but you avoid wasting bandwidth and server hits on the pages you don't want to see.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
>Planes are safe, full stop.
Not flying on planes is safer than flying on them.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
WCBS-2 (local TV station in NYC) is reporting that all bags on this American Airlines flight were screened before being loaded on to the plane. This is not standard operating procedure, but since 9/11, it is being done occasionally on a random basis.
Also, another NYC TV station (not sure which one) said a little while ago that the pilot of this flight DID perform a visual pre-flight inspection -- walking around the plane to look for obvious problems.
www.thebravest.com has live stream of FDNY Radio. I cant get anything now, im sure due to heavy traffic, but maybe someone will have luck.
Don't Tread on Me
A lack of response guarantees failure.
Only if you define success as the destruction of the enemy, which in the case of terrorism is an impossible goal. (You cannot destroy an idea, except by killing everyone who has been exposed to it, which includes yourself.) Even if you define success as the destruction of terrorists, the numbers are against you: for every terrorist you kill, at least one new terrorist will be recruited. And you will probably have to kill several innocent people per terrorist, because terrorists don't do you the favour of living in barracks.
Appeasement to make "other people like us" is guaranteed to fail, and furthermore, makes dirty bastards like you as guilty as the killers.
Let me see if I understand you: someone like me who objects to the bombing of innocent people is a dirty bastard and guilty of terrorism. Whereas someone like you who openly supports the bombing of innocent people is the farthest thing you can imagine from a terrorist.
Your type killed millions of Czechs by appeasing Hitler.
And your "type" killed millions of Americans and Germans by opposing Hitler. Perhaps that was necessary, perhaps it was the right decision in 1941, perhaps more than 55 million people would have been killed if the world had not gone to war. But despite what CNN tells you, Osama bin Laden is not Hitler. He is not the head of a national army. He is a terrorist. His followers live among us, so they cannot be stopped by purely military means. The only way to stop terrorism is to address the issues that make people so angry that they decide to become terrorists.
Do you think more terrorists like him will follow along if we don't act? Clue: Look at the Carter presidency.
You obviously watched Ronald Reagan's election campaign before you retreated to your bunker, but I have some news for you: while you were underground, we found out that the Reagan administration sold arms to Iran (yes, the same Iran that took those hostages) to fund terrorists in Nicaragua. Which makes any criticism of the Carter administration for appeasing terrorists look pretty stupid.
Look at your examples supplied and a culture of minimal response. Clue: Look at Syria. Have a city threatening with insurrection? Exterminate it and set an example.
Look at Canada. Have a province that wants to secede? Hold an election. Are you seriously suggesting that the US should model itself on Syria?
For our sake, I'd encourage you to seek the closest bridge, jump and get it over with. Quit bothering us with your fascination with suicide.
I'm not opposing the bombing because I want to be killed. I'm opposing the bombing because I don't want to be killed. Bombing Afghanistan is drawing people to the terrorist cause and making it more likely that I'll get killed. It's also killing innocent people on the ground.
This was a flight that was destined for the Dominican Republic and other destinations in the Caribbean. According to FAA reports, the plane was booked to capacity and may well have had all it's booked passengers on board.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
One Captain Marchessi was interviewed live over the telephone on Spain's national television, TVE. He said (and I am paraphrasing here) that Airbus planes are designed to survive the loss of an engine, and that pilots are trained for precisely such an eventuality; therefore, he believes, it is unlikely that the loss of thrust alone would have caused the plane to crash. (To his credit, he declined to speculate further despite pressure from the reporter.)
Now, can somebody tell me whether the phrase "the loss of an engine" in this context could mean the physical loss of the engine? Or is it just an idiom meaning "the loss of an engine's thrust"? I mean -- are these planes really designed to account for the possible dettachment of an engine?
It is actually quite normal for planes to crash every now and then, therefore it is most likely to be an accident.
A good example to support this point is the Sibir Airlines plane that went down in the Black Sea a month ago. Initially it was assumed to be terrorism (especially since the plane departed from Israel). However the consensus is now that it was hit by a stray Ukrainian missile that got away from its test range.
So even though terrorism might be the most likely reason for the New York crash, and the first thing that should be investigated, it is not the only possibility.
True fact. Loss of power in one engine should not cause a plane to crash in every case. However, having the engine separate from the airframe is a different situation from simple loss of power. It is reasonable to assume that there would be serious problems resulting from this kind of event: loss of blanace, structural damage to wing, fire in addition to loss of thrust.
Having an engine shut down is a pretty serious problem. Having one explode during takeoff is certainly much more serious and inevitably catastrophic.
Note I currently think this was "just" a plane crash.
...I live in Rockaway, bitch...
1 -- I worry b/c the plane originated from Boston
2 -- I worry b/c today is 11-12
3 -- I worry b/c Mike Moran said
4 -- I worry b/c I am in the Travel industry and my company nearly went out of business on 9-12
But all in all accident or attack my company is fucked.
This
Now, I love a conspiracy theory as much as anyone, but this plane did not come down the same way. For starters, this one came down in a heavily populated area on a penninsula. Had the plane traveled for another 45 seconds (or even less?) before going down, it would plop into the water. (Unless of course, it turned and was headed toward land.)
Also, from what I gather right now, it had only been in the air for 2 minutes. I find it hard to believe that any Air Force jets could get information that the plane was compromised, get into position to fire, and verify that the plane was a legit target before firing within that timeframe. Then again, I am not an expert on these things so perhaps anything is possible.
I knew something was wrong when I woke up this morning and none of the news sites were picking up. There was this awful ping of complete and total fear where I literally felt my heart fall into stomach... something was wrong.
I ran downstairs and turned on the TV and saw the breaking news. I now know, whenever cnn, msnbc and abcnews ALL don't pick up... and then ny1.com doesn't either... that something awful has happened again in New York.
Forget about using the major networks... get your info from the sources:
Reuters Last 25 Articles
AP Wire
Any others?
Davak
http://www.carotids.com
A commercial jet is able to withstand the physical (separate) and thrustwise loss of an engine. In fact, aircraft engines are designed deliberately to "fall off" from the wing. Imagine for the sake of argument, that the turbine blades are turning at around 10,000 RPM. Now, stick a Canadian Goose in front of it, so that some of the blades break of an jam the engine so the blades no longer turn. Can you imagine how much momentum (gyroscopic) that these blades have? Suddenly stopping them instantaneously would create so much of an impulse that the engine will twist itself right off. No damage is done to the wing (less some drag) and there is plenty of thrust from N2.
The tricky part is, if (as is in this case) the engine explodes, THEN falls off, there is likely damage done to the wings (likely the flaps on takeoff as may be the case here) and possibly the hydraulic systems, etc.
Bottom line is, the plane can withstand flying literally without an engine, but any collateral damage can change the situation.
The higher, the fewer.
Since the latest reports seem to suggest that there was a mid-air explosion before the plane came down, people might be interested in reading this notice from the FAA requiring that modifications be performed on Airbus A300 series aircraft in order to eliminate a possible cause of fuel tank explosion. Judging by the dates on the notice -- effective September 10, modifications must be performed within 18 months -- I'd guess that many planes haven't been modified yet.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Boston.com (http://www.boston.com) is reporting:
LATEST UPDATES: The FBI is investigating reports from eyewitnesses that there was an explosion on the plane while it was still in the air. AP says the pilot did not report any trouble before the crash, but CBS reports that a United Airlines pilot heard the American Airlines pilot tell traffic control he was having mechanical trouble.
Logan Airport is open, but there is no service to New York. Some international flights are being diverted from N.Y. to Boston.
Note there have been past accidents where an engine has been lost on takeoff, most prominatly El-Al 1862 at Amsterdam in October 1992.
I dunno about that... I don't live anywhere near NYC, and talking to real people (i.e. not listening to people on TV) I haven't heard of anyone actually being scared. If you look at the big picture, there really isn't much widescale "terror" to the terrorism; the country is just too big.
Get away from the northeastern USA, and the only way the terrorism is really affecting most people's lives, is the reaction that it has provoked from the government. The actual plane crashes themselves are just Yet Another television thing.
That must sound really weird or insensitive to New Yorkers, I guess. But it's true.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If you want more security on airplanes, arm the pilots. Or even better yet, let those citizens with concealed carry permits carry their defense with them onto any airplane.
Or don't you trust "ordinary Americans?" And if you do not trust them, why? Is it possible that the American government has indoctrinated most Americans with the idea that they are helpless and that only the Federal government can solve their problems?
And if you are not an American, what expertise do you have that makes you an authority for Americans?
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
This is an incorrect use of Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor dictates that each event be looked at as if it were in a vacuum. The simplest explanation is the engine fell off causing the plane to crash.
But as H.L. Mencken said, for every problem there is a solution that is both simple and wrong.
Until further evidence, though, it is better to approach this as a 'normal' air disaster while posting a Lemur to watch for any other threats. This is what the government has done, New York has gone into emergency mode (good idea) but nationally we need to see that this is just like any other air disaster - saddening but not an attack.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Holland has had it's share of planes falling from the sky.
0 ,9 171,1107990322-22329,00.html
Details about todays crash are hard to find but it reminds me of the 1992 bijlmer crash. A cargo plain lost 2 engines and crashed into a building.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/intl/article/
From the link above:
The basic facts surrounding the Oct. 4, 1992 accident are not in dispute. The Boeing 747-200F, carrying three crew, one non-commercial passenger and 114 tons of freight, took off from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport at 6:21 p.m. en route to Tel Aviv. Seven minutes later, both starboard engines ripped loose from the wing. The pilot circled back toward the airport to attempt an emergency landing, but the crippled craft came down in the predominantly immigrant neighborhood of Bijlmer, 13 km east of Schiphol. In an October 1994 report, the Netherlands Aviation Safety Board blamed the crash on mechanical failure due to faulty engine mountings.
Your logic is totally faulty. Terrorists are going to vary their attack profiles, because they know that after an incident, security on that profile will be intensified.
Not if the alternative is to use more dangerous methods of transit. If you drive instead of flying, you are increasing your risk.
It's full of factual errors.
Donald Rumsfeld said that we're unlikely to catch Bin Laden.
Bin Laden doesn't matter that much, what matters is that Al Queda is destroyed. Bin Laden will probably be killed, an if not his ability to function will be severely restricted and he will no longer have a friendly national government to protect him.
Many members of the Taliban are no longer in the Taliban and will never be caught
We are only at war with the Taliban in so much that they are Helping Bin Laden. Individual Taliban solders didn't have anything to do with the bombing of NYC. If they defect from the Taliban then they are no longer protecting Bin Laden. So who cares? What matters is that we destroy the ablity of Al Queda to harm the US. Not kill everyone we don't like.
Neither Bin Laden nor the Taliban are Afghani.
The Taliban are pashtoon(sp?) Pashtoon is a large ethnic group in Afghanistan. Many people in Afghanistan identify themselves by their ethnic group. The Taliban was mostly educated in Madrassas (religious schools) in Pakistan, but came originally in from Afghanistan.
We are bombing innocent civilians who happened to have the misfortune of being invaded by people who attacked the US as well
It is unfortunate that civilians are being killed, but so far there have only been forty eight confirmed dead civilians. The vast, vast majority of individuals killed in Afghanistan have been members of the Taliban.
Hundreds of thousands, even millions of Afghanis died in the years of strife. The civilian toll caused by our actions are far less then the 'status quo'. Remember, the Taliban kills people for shit like using a computer or adultery. If the taliban is overthrown, there is a possibility that the number of people killed could be made up for in a year or two.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
American Airlines - prior target.
:(
NYC - prior target.
Outbound flight loaded with fuel presumably.
I've heard their was a meeting of a bunch of arab leaders to discuss the fate of Afghanistan at the UN.
I've also heard (CBC) that Rudy Giuliani (sp?) and Pres Perwez Musharef (sp?) were to tour Ground Zero more or less at the time of the accident.
Also the district where things landed is a shopping district - another symbol of capitalism.
And the eyewitnesses have reported seeing flames from the planes sides. I'm imagining a bomb or a bit of sabotage could easily have caused such an effect.
According to an aviation expert from the USA, interviewed by CBC, the Airbus has a very good safety record and there haven't been (with US carrier's Airbuses anyway) any accidents of this nature.
Now, this doesn't prove anything. In fact, it doesn't even produce a convincing allegation. But it is certainly an interesting combination of facts. If it is mechanical failure not caused by any hostile agency, then it is just an ugly coincidence and NYC is just having more than its fair share of horrendous luck.
I'll be anxious to see how this all comes out in the wash.
And I extend my sympathies to anyone affected directly by this tragedy. Regardless of how it came to be, it is quite horrific.
Tomb
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Pardon my ignorance, but is the Muslim Sabbath on a Sunday?
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
No. A better analogy is: "if someone car-jacks your sister and drives off a cliff, should you shoot his mom?"
Should we have not fought the Civil War? [or WW2 or Revolutionary War]Afghanistan in 2001 is much Much MUCH more like Vietnam in 1961 than it is like Europe in 1941 or America in 1861. Think about that.
This post is so full of factual errors it's astounding.
But someone already addressed them all before me.
I'm just suggesting a new moderation category.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Somehow I think the radical Islamist point of view won't follow these points.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? - Joshua (Wargames)
With all the technology we have now, how come we are still looking for that stupid black box? How come the information that is in the black box is not routed wirelessly directly to the airport control towers?
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
If it turns out to be true, it will be evidence that someone was aware of the possibility as early as [date stamp of original message].
Reality has a liberal bias
Maybe this crash is a bug: there *were* 255 people on the plane...
// something horrible
const unsigned char NOT_A_PLANE = 0xff;
...
if (pcount == NOT_A_PLANE) {
}
Yeah, right. Glad I don't write avionic software.
I'm having a great deal of trouble coming to grips with the reality that hundreds of people killed on the plane and on the ground by a mechanical problem, strange air or pilot error could be, in a strange way, good news.
How much things change.
Now comes the hard part: waiting for an answer.
Remember the frenzy after Pan-Am 800? We even had a former presidential press secretary proclaiming that it had been shot down by a missile.
Only a long and painstaking investigation revealed the problem with sparks in the central fuel tank on 747's.
Just as I hope that Congress doesn't go ballistic passing oppressive laws for our protection, I hope that the NTSB will act only as quickly as a proper investigation will allow.
The stakes are so high now.
This [salon.com]article is saying that GW is now meeting with his advisors about whether or not there is enough of a chance of this being a terrorist attack that it warrants shutting down US airspace again. At this time, they have made no decision on the matter.
My personal thought on the matter is that the only way we are going to know if this was a terrorist attack is:
A) Somebody claims responisbility (not too likely)
B) Another plane goes down
C) The NTSB comes back (after a couple of weeks) and says it was a bomb
It seems to me that the government is either just going to have to wait and see if it happens again before they make that decision OR, they could shut everything down and start searching engines for bombs, but, in light of the fact that there is no evidence that this is terrorist-related, isn't shutting it all down giving in to terrorism?
it would be very irresponsable for us to jump to any conclusions. So nobody should be saying that it was, or was not, a terrioist attack.
Its true that planes do crash, and it is possible that this is a conicidence. But given the recent events, it would be just plain dumb to not take into consideration terriosm.
The AirBus A300 is a very reliable aircraft, and has been in use for 30 years.
We need to take the time to look at the facts, once the smoke clears.
"Flee at once, all is discovered."
well since an engine fell a little while before. I'd assume the cause would be lack of an engine.
That'll do it, y'know.
Which motivates them more, though? Poverty or death?
Say 'Rich Americans are keeping you poor' and some will undoubtedly be motivated to kill Americans.
Say 'Rich Americans are killing your family and friends' and I'd bet rather more will want to kill Americans.
I'm not sure _what_ I'd have done, but I can see an awful lot of negative consequences to what we've done so far.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Soo... how come no one's talking about Stingers yet? Is everyone taking those 5-point don't-jump-to-conclusions posts seriously? Gimme a break, those are karma whores, through and through. Speculation is where the fun is.
Here's something to think about, even if it turns out to be completely unrelated to what happened today: the resistance against the Soviets had shoulder-launched SAMs. They were trained how to use them, and used them effectively.
Commercial aircraft take off on very predictable routes. It should be pretty easy to find an optimum firing position within a few miles of an airport, and park your car. You can study the pattern for weeks if you like. Then a plane goes right over your, you open the trunk, take out your Stinger, and shoot the slow-moving low-altitude plane (with nice hot engines at full takeoff power) in the back.
Total security checkpoints you had to go through: zero, except when you smuggled the US-made SAM back into the country. (Or maybe you can even make your own right here -- the Sidewinder budget in the 50s was supposedly really low, and stuff that was cheap in the 50s is nearly free today). And you can do the shooting so fast, there might not even be any witnesses.
Defending against that sort of thing is going to be tricky.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I really don't understand why this is marked as flamebait. It seems like a genuine post to me, not even particuarly unreasonable.
What most anti-war protestors object to is killing a bunch of people who had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks. For instance, it's estimated that 100,000-1,000,000 people will starve as a result of US/UK bombing of Afghanistan. This is not the estimate of those who will starve, it is the difference between the numbers who would have died anyway, and the number who will die now. The assassination of the leaders of those responsible would be just fine with lot's of people who object to the "war" (myself included). Unfortunately this is not very easy to accomplish.
Just a couple of quick questions for you here: how many of the terrorists were Afghans ?
where did the majority of the terrorists come from ?
which country provides most the funding for AlQueada ?
(hint: 0,Saudi-12/18,Saudi)
So, given the above, how many dead civilian Afghanis would be acceptable in your opinion ? Seriously, I'm curious, is it
a) "all of them",
b) 10,000,000-1,000,000
c) 1,000,000-100,000
d) 100,000-10,000
e) 10,000-1,000
f) 1-1000
g) none
Personally, I would opt for (e),(f) or maybe even (d) *if* I was convinced this would prevent another Sept 11 or worse.
And I guess the related question is: for what objectives are you prepare to kill that number of people ?
Would that be acceptable in order to also achieve death of Osama Bin Laden, or OBL + most of Al-Queada, or OBL+AlQueada+Taliban, or what ?
> we need to stop being so... law abiding? moral?
What I'm curious about is where you got the impression that the US was doing those things anyway ? What laws do you think the IS abiding by ? On the moral front, I agree with right to defend oneself, I'm just not convinced that this is what's going on here. Are you starting to feel safer now that some Afghans have been blown up too ? Do you believe this reduces the threat of future terrorist attacks ?
This isn't meant to be rehetorical. I'm just puzzled. I'll answer hawksish questions in response if mine are answered.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
No, we haven't been programmed to be happy little consumers, have we?
Beats the shit out of the alternative programming choices out there.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Several times in your Anonymous message, you indicate it is okay to kill innocents (future soldiers, entire cities) in pursuit of your own country's goals. You are unprincipled, arrogant, and cruel. Sound like anyone we know?
Telling someone they should kill themselves because you find their speech annoying... it really points to how much diversity in opinion you are willing to tolerate, doesn't it?
Reply with your name next time. Coward.
What an incredibly naive statment. When a fanatic wants to kill you, talking to him to "end the cycle of violence" only gives him more opportunities to kill you. When Hitler tried to take over the world, did we try to stop the "cycle of violance" by talking to him? HELL NO! We responded with force. We killed the enemy. That's how you end the cycle of violence.
-- Will program for bandwidth
How about searching for "bomb" on this list:
Airline disasters 1920-2000
Now which seems the greater likelyhood to you - accident or terrorism? YOU do the math!
Actually, Ockham says we shouldn't mulitply entities unnecessarily. So if there is a non-metaphysical explanation (i.e. no spooky forces) for an event, then that is to be preferred. He certainly does not say that we prefer the simplest physical explanation.
Depending on how it fails, it can come off the airframe. There are fuse pins in place that will shear at a certain load to prevent damage to the airframe.
Two Boeing 747's crashed in the early 1990's when their fuse pins failed. Admittedly it was caused by a cargo door coming open in flight and the debris killing #3 engine which came off and took #4 with it.
But engines don't normally come off in flight; the stress that would cause that would rip off the wing (or at least parts of it) first.
I'm leaning towards a catasproohic engine failure, perhaps precipitated by another event such as a cargo door opening (which would happen most often on climb out soon after take off due to the changing pressure). ANother factor is that the airplane had had an "A check" maintenance stop the day before.
Never understimate the power of human stupidity -Lazarus Long
Which takes us down a whole other path (and a whole other huge arguement). Just exactly what do we do. According to the Washington Post we've shown the Taliban evidence of bin Landen and his boys' involvement in the Cole bombings, as well as the African embassey bombings, yet they haven't turned him over. I'd guess it would be safe to say that they would take the same tact this time. So the few choices I see are keep asking "pretty please", try some sort of embargo and put political pressure on Afghanistan (but since no one in the international community except the likes Saudi and Pakistan have even recognized them as a governing body I seriously doubt that would work), or you take action to smoke the guy out.
Of course, the orig statement from which I replied was the one equating bombing Afghanistan with airport security (or the lack there of), which is a bogus argument. Airport security and the actions in Afghanistan are orthogonal.
an engine fell from the plane some distance from the fuselage.
Uuhh... clear this up?
Why bother.
For an airworthiness directive of this magnitude, Airbuses should have been grounded until they were fixed.
I'm no expert on how the FAA operates, but I assumed that the instruction "Within 18 months after the effective date of this AD, modify the electrical connector..." meant that the planes could still be operated for up to 18 months without the modifications being made. If not, what does that clause mean?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Folks,
:-(
While a lot of people a angling towards the idea of a terrorist action, I think there's one possibility that no one has yet discussed: mechanical failure caused by a catastrophic bird strike.
Far-fetched? Not if you know something about the geography and ecology at JFK Airport and Jamaica Bay. To the west and south of JFK Airport is a very large marshy area that serves as a sanctuary for migratory birds (plus some native waterfowl). This means at this time of the year--when birds are migrating south for the winter--there will be millions of birds out in this sanctuary.
What happens when you have flocks of birds rising by the thousands getting in the way of the flight path of an airliner taking off out into Jamaica Bay? My guess is that American Airlines Flight 857 may have flown in to a very large flock of birds just after take off, mean the plane's two GE CF6-80 engines may be ingested 40 or more birds per engine somewhere between 1 and 2 seconds. That many birds being ingested will seriously damage the front engine blades, and such a severe bird ingestion may be enough to cause a catastrophic fan section failure, which can spew out very sharp engine fan blades at supersonic speeds, possibly breaking through the engine nacelle and hitting the fuselage, wing flap control lines and wing fuel tanks, which explains the fire on the wings that eyewitnesses saw.
Eyewitnesses said that the plane flew very low before the plane lost one of its engines and then crashed down at a sharp angle. This sounds consistent with the plane suffering a catastrophic bird strike.
If anyone remembers, some years ago an E-3A Sentry AWACS plane crashed aftering taking off from Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, AK after the engines failed due to a catastrophic bird ingestion problem. AA Flight 857 may have suffered a similar unfortunate fate.
The plane crashed shortly after 9 a.m. and thick, black smoke could be scene in televised reports.
/. effect goes further than just bandwidth... looks like Taco's writing for Yahoo.
Apparently, the
Please note: I am not trying to be disrespectful in the face of death; I simply find that a little humor can cheer everyone up.
What an incredibly naive statment. When a fanatic wants to kill you, talking to him to "end the cycle of violence" only gives him more opportunities to kill you. When Hitler tried to take over the world, did we try to stop the "cycle of violance" by talking to him? HELL NO! We responded with force. We killed the enemy. That's how you end the cycle of violence.
Contrary to popular belief, terrorists are not Hitler, nor are they comparable to Hitler. Terrorists are terrorists by choice, because of some percieved wrong against them. Take away their reason for terrorizing and they stop. Hitler was a madman who managed to subvert an entire country. As another poster pointed out, McVeigh would not have bombed OKC had we not first murdered the Branch Davidians in Waco. When you do such things to begin a cycle of violence and hate, it does not end until you let it end. People like you, unfortunately, choose to not let it end.
Also contrary to popular belief, killing millions of innocent people in Germany did nothing to end the cycle of violence and hate. Nor, it turns out, did nuking Japan, although I still believe that given the information we had at the time, it was the best course of action known to our leaders. A very unfortunate one. Until we learn to stop killing each other over petty differences and lose this drive for "revenge" (which, btw, does not bring back, or otherwise let the dead rest more easily) the cycle of violence and hate will continue.
Resist the cycle of violence and hate.
P.S. Free clue for you: It is not the "cycle of violence," it is the "cycle of violence and hate." Without hate, the violence would stop. The only way to stop hate is to stop violence, and the only way to stop violence is to stop hate. Sometimes I think we are really less evolved than most "wild" animals. We certainly act like it.
-Nathan
Care about freedom?
Become a card carrying member of the GOA.
IMO bin laden claimed responisbiliry yesterday so perhaps that was a signal
Where, in your opinion did he do such a thing?
OK. So that makes it sound like a terrorist, but not so fast...
Here is my logic: A high explosive device that was able to tear the wing off would have caused some pretty spectacular effects and not caused the fires that were seen. So it was probably not a high explosive.
Low explosives are not much more of a candidate either-- it would be really hard to make a dangerous LE device on a plane.
However, there is a class of explosives that would work-- high blast pressures, fires, and low ranges: fuel-air explosives, or FAE's. Note that the fuel has to go through the wing to the engine, so it has to go into the wing. If there was a leak, an explosion could have caused everything that was seen.
So I think that a fuel leak around the junction of the wing was responsible along with a spark, excess heat, or something. So one is back to accident or sabotage.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Regardless, it shows last-minute straight-thinking on the pilot's part. The fire on the ground could have been much worse.
Since I don't hate Muslims, I don't see how your silly ideas can make a difference. You need to talk to the extremists who hate Westerners for whatever reason. I suggest you fly over to Afghanistan and personally talk to them. I'm sure they will listen to reason.
-- Will program for bandwidth
That is the key .. All our anti-terrorist measures prior to 9/11 assumed that the terrorists don't want to die. We can't assume that any more.
Dick, lets launch some tomahawks! I like their perdy smoke trails...
-
To both the ACs and the Moderators
So much for rewarding those reporting breaking news. It was the best available when reported. Look at the time of posting before flaming a poor soul.
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
Wrong, buddy. An airplane is a realy heavy thing in midair moving forward really fast. Its wings aren't big enough (aren't generating enough lift) to let it glide at low speeds. However, the addition of 4 1600 pound foil type chutes (think aerial demonstrators) greatly increases the airfoil surface available, and could let the plane generate enough lift to increase its glide distance. It's a question of getting your forward speed to keep you up, not slowing down your downward fall directly.
My Karma is so good, I'm the Dalai Lama...or something.
Hey, it's not my idea. I think it's a looney idea too. I was just pointing out that a company with an established ballistic parachute product for light planes thinks it will work on a 747 as well.
Also, the way they were planning on deploying the chutes on an airliner, it wouldn't just add drag, it would add drag and lift. When fully filled, the parachutes looked more like a parasails, essentially adding a bunch of wing area.
Thank you for the correction.
Given that neither reaction nor inaction will prevent further attacks,
I don't think you can take that as a given.
but consider these points.
Which course (action or inaction) will encourage contempt and future aggression? (Clue: Neville Chamberlain, Bin Ladens comments after we retreated from Somolia)
Which course makes killing Americans a risk free and easy way to advance your political cause (whatever it might be)
Which course leaves our avowed enemies (which you concede WILL attack us) free to stage those future attacks without interference.
As for responding to your points:
Which course will polarise world opinion, leading previously moderate people to support radical organisations? (Clue: look at Pakistan.)
Answer: Inaction - Yes, lets look at Pakistan for a clue. A nation that supported the Taliban and even Al Queada and a regime that has a lot of sympathy to both. Yet they actively support us - why? I think the answer is our likely "action" if they had continued support for radical organisations. As for the Pakistani "street" where there is unrest (though not really very much by Pakistani standards) as long as individual support for radical organisations is going to organisations that are harrassed by every government, without a safe haven and ineffectual - who cares.
Which course will kill innocent people abroad, in addition to those who have already died in the US? (Clue: look at Afghanistan.)
Answer: Inaction - Al Queada as a particular organisation has as a STATED OBJECTIVE the acquisition AND USE of Chemical, Biological and Nuclear weapons to pursue a holy war against all infidels on formerly Muslim lands (According to bin Laden this includes Spain by the way) - given time and the safety of Afghanistan they will succeed in this objective. Even in Afghanistan direct civillian casualites from US attacks pale in comparison to past attrocities by all other parties to the conflict - Casualties from famine is the real threat and is a powerful argument for a MORE aggresive attack that will put a larger portion of the population behind UF lines where aid can more readily reach them. The increased attention the war is generating is probably a boon to the millions of Afghan refugees *with were already* in Pakistan and Iran.
Which course will perpetuate a cycle of violence and be used to justify further attacks? (Clue: look at the Balkans, Northern Ireland, Israel and Palestine.)
Inaction: All of the "clues" you provide are instances of people with different ethnic groups occupying the same ground where no lasting "victory" is possible - that is not the case with the US and any muslim land unless you think we are planning to colonise Afghanistan. Why not other "clues" of the inevitable "cycle of violence" war must always create? Look at the "cycle of violence" between the US and it's past enemies: England, Canada (at the time part of the British Empire) Mexico, Spain, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Vichy France, Korea (& China), Russia (a cold war but "enemies" none the less) even Vietnam which we completely botched but I still wouldn't characterise American and Vietnamese relations as a "cycle of violence" like the other "clues" you mentioned. In some of these cases our relationships are actually better for having had a war - can you imagine that we would be as friendly as we are with Germany, Italy and Japan if we had not gone to war against them? And there was a *massively* greater number of civilian casualties, displacement, ethnic expulsions, genocide & atrocities to feed a cycle of violence in those cases.
Yeah, fight the power! Happiness is just The Man telling you how to feel!
That would assume that the media had their shit together _before_ Sept 11, which would be a very bad assumption. This is just the latest thing for them to hype all out of proportion - SOP for the media.
An Aussie mate of mine opened his laptop on an American aircraft recently, and discovered his large, flat-bladed screwdriver inside the bag. It would make a dandy lethal weapon. A hostess was leaning over his seat to adjust something at the time, and advised him to hide it and say nothing.
How difficult would it be to hide a couple of pistols in the laptop's docking bays?
The reason that Israeli airliners don't get hijacked is that if a terrorist stood up in one, he'd be dead in seconds, weapons or not. You can't legislate safety, but you *can* legislate the right to self-defense, and you *can* avoid so drowning your people in a network of complex rules for every breath and every step of their lives that they're aware enough to actually use that right.
You can also remove a lot of reasons for others to hate you by not throwing your weight around internationally. That reduces terrorism without hamstringing your own people.
Finally, you need to ask why the government would declare a war when 5000 people die, but not against the tens of thousands of drunk-driver killings that happen in the mainland USA every year.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
There was an article in The Economist claiming that terrorist nuclear attacks are a serious threat. After Sept.11, this seems worryingly plausible. If this happens, it will make Sept.11 look like "small beer" as the French say.
Shouldn't the phenomenon more fairly be called engine-suck rather than bird-strike? I mean it's not as if flocks of kamikaze birds don their helmets and goggles, and tear towards engine #1 screaming BANZAI! is it?
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
bin Laden, being a Saudi, would have recieved the bulk of his tactical learning from Western sources and would be accustomed to the ways and mannerisms of US forces.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
What kind of funky, retard-grade crack are moderators smoking these days, anyway?
If you wanted to mod him down, "overrated" would be a more logical reason. It's hard to be redundant when the comment you're posting is the first comment on the story. Maybe if moderators would stop reading at "highest rated first"...
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
I live in Queens, about 8-9 miles from the crash site. As opposed to the 14-15 miles from the WTC.
I just got an Iguana, and was playing with him all morning. We turned the TV on at around noon to see the news. I soaked it in for about 20 minutes, went "meh" and turned it off. People on IRC across the country were discussing it for hours.
It's interesting that this didn't even rile me, what with all of the other things I've had happen to me the past few months. I suppose in a few weeks, I'll think about all of the people that died and start crying.
Terrorists winning? Only if apathy is their goal.
Very few people get drunk accidentally, even fewer drive cars accidentally.
Drink-driving is gross negligence, and when you drink, drive and kill someone it's absolutely, unquestionably your fault that they died. You took every step on the road to their death. You killed them. You trundle past policemen, knowing you're doing wrong and hoping that they'll not notice you, as did bin Laden's hijackers. It's no different in principle, only in scale.
A number of countries with a more pragmatic attitude to such things have discovered that shooting repeat-offense drink drivers out of hand is immensely profitable in terms of lives not lost. Perhaps America should do the same?
.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Tom.
Oh arse
Damn good response. While I only referred to his posting as "silly arguments" in general, you did an expert job of picking apart every one of his points. To put it another way, you performed an intellectual kicking in the nuts. Of course, since he's a pacifist, he'll probably break out in a Barnie song.
My recipe for dealing with pacifists requires fava beans and a nice Chianti.
-- Will program for bandwidth