By Philip Newman
More than half the nearly 350 witnesses to the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 Nov. 12 said the Santo Domingo-bound plane was on fire before it crashed into Belle Harbor on the Rockaway peninsula.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it would convene a hearing in Washington in October into what caused the crash of the Airbus 300-600 jetliner, which left 265 persons dead — 260 on the plane and five on the ground.
The NTSB said in its latest report its investigators received accounts from 349 persons who saw the plane just before it went down.
The government agency said 57 percent witnessed something separate from the plane, with 13 percent seeing a wing break away.
“Fifty-two percent specifically reported seeing a fire while the plane was in the air, with the fuselage the most often-cited location,” the report said. Other areas mentioned as on fire were the engines and the wings.
Twenty percent said they saw no fire.
The NTSB report said 8 percent of those interviewed reported an explosion, 22 percent said they saw smoke, 20 percent no smoke and 13 percent said they saw the jetliner “wobbling, dipping or moving from side to side on its descent.”
The reports from witnesses were obtained by NTSB investigators through interviews or written statements. More complete observations are to be published in a report at a public hearing for which no specific date has been announced.
The NTSB also said it had shipped two 6-by-2 1/2-foot panels from the plane’s vertical stabilizer to the Ford Motor Co. evaluation laboratory in Livonia, Mich., to learn more about the damage to the composite material used in the tail assembly.
The Ford lab provides computerized tomography scanning which investigators said they hope will provide information on what happened to the composite material.
The material is made up of layered carbon fibers and is widely considered stronger that metal, although earlier in the investigation some layers were found to have separated. Investigators want to determine if the separation might have occurred before the crash or as a result of it.
Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 136.
