Plane Crash Investigation
With Douglas B. Feaver
Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com and
Former Post Aviation Reporter
Monday, Nov. 12, 2001; 2 p.m. EST

American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 twin-engine plane carrying 246 passengers and nine crew members, crashed shortly after take-off from John F. Kennedy Airport, igniting a huge, smoky fire in a residential section of Queens, N.Y. An FAA spokesman said there was no initial indication of what caused the crash and White House and FBI spokesmen said they could rule terrorism neither in nor out.

Douglas B. Feaver, executive editor of washingtonpost.com and former Washington Post aviation reporter, was online Monday, Nov. 12, at 2 p.m. EST, to discuss the crash and the investigation.

A transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Bethesda, Md.: How long does it usually take once the black box has been found to learn what might have happened before the crash? And how much time is on the tapes of the black box?

Douglas B. Feaver: So far one of the two "black boxes" has been recovered -- the flight data recorder. Assuming it has not been catastrophically damaged, some preliminary information about exactly what the aircraft was doing and when should be available soon, within a day or two. However, a much more detailed study will be done before final conclusions are reached. The other black box, the cockpit voice recorder, has not been found; it records the voices and sounds in the cockpit for the last 30 minutes if a flight. Since this crash occurred shortly after takeoff, if both recorders worked and survived, the entire technical and sound record of flight should be recorded.

Alexandria, Va.: It is a very strange coincidence that this extra added catastophy has happened exactly two months and one day after the anniversary of 9/11 on Veteran's Day in New York. Will the investigation of this crash be treated as a normal investigation or will there be added tactics due to the latest atrocity?

Douglas B. Feaver: Obviously everybody is sensitive to the time in history this crash occurred. That said, so far the outward signs of the government response are those accorded to an aviation accident. The National Transportation Safety Board is the lead agency; it is customary for the FBI to participate in all accident investigations until criminal activity is ruled out or in. If criminal activity comes to the fore, the FBI effectively assumes command of the investigation, as happened in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.

Falls Church, Va.: Though at first thought it could seem like yet another terrorist attack, it could also have been a normal plane crash. What are your thoughts about this crash?

Douglas B. Feaver: I agree with that statement, except for one point: no commercial plane crash is a normal event. Such events happen so rarely that they are statistical anomalies. In the United States, before schedules were trimmed after Sept. 11, about 20,000 commercial flights a day took off and landed, almost always without incident.

Alexandria, Va.: I work in Alexandria and I have seen several planes (not close enough to tell whether they are military or commercial) flying in circles. Are the D.C. airports in a holding pattern? I have also seen several presidential helicopters. Are we safe?

Douglas B. Feaver: Military aircraft have been much more visible over Washington and New York and some other cities since Sept. 11. As White spokesman Ari Fleischer said earlier today, "The military… does have defense crews, fighter capability that they will change the level of in regard to any particular needs, and they did take appropriate defensive measures as quickly as they received word about this." To state the obvious, however, there is no such thing in life as 100 percent safety.

San Diego, Calif.: How is it that an entire engine becomes detached from the A300? And I have heard of airplanes recovering and making safe landings after losing an engine. Why was this plane not recoverable after losing its engine?

Douglas B. Feaver: There are many potential reasons why an engine could become detached -- and you are quite right, the literal loss of an engine should not and often does not mean the loss of the aircraft. In fact, engines are designed to break away from the aircraft without causing its loss. But the most critical phases of flight are still takeoffs and landings, where there is less altitude for the crew to make corrections if something catastrophic goes wrong. The investigation will be looking very carefully at just that question.

West Point, N.Y.: There has been speculation that losing the engine that fell off the plane caused the plane to go into a roll, and caused the pilot to lose control. Is this a valid assumption?

Douglas B. Feaver: It is certainly a plausible scenario, depending on what happened to the controls -- the leading edge slats and trailing edge flaps on the wing that lost the engine -- but it is far too early to know at this point.

Lancaster, Pa.: It is apparent that there were no survivors in the horrible tragedy. When can we expect American Airlines to publish a passenger/crew list?

Douglas B. Feaver: Impossible to answer with precision because there are many people to be notified. The airline, working with the safety board, will release the list as soon as it can.

washingtonpost.com: Theories inevitably surface that airliners that crash were shot down by missiles or military jets. Is there any evidence to support a theory like that in this New York case?

Douglas B. Feaver: You're right about the history of such theories. Nothing that has emerged so far suggests anything like that to be fact in this case.

Fairfax, Va.: Can a gross-loaded A300 take off on one engine?

Douglas B. Feaver: To be certified as "airworthy," the A300 had to demonstrate the capability to take off on one engine after pilots reached the go-no go point in their takeoff roll down the runway. And many successful takeoffs on one engine have occurred in commercial aviation history. This plane was apparently airborne, however, before the crash sequence began, judging from the fact the primary crash site is about five miles from Kennedy Airport.

New York, N.Y.: If this turns out to be a terrorist act of some sort, how does Congress regain the credibility and stature lost by its diddling back and forth about the airline security bill?

Douglas B. Feaver: We don't know at this point whether airline security has anything to do with this crash. I think it is reasonable to assume that it will provide some impetus to Congress resolve the security screening debate.

College Park, Md.: What are these "black boxes" made of that they withstand such extreme conditions in the event of a crash? And how often are they recovered in a condition to be of any use in investigations?

Douglas B. Feaver: The "black boxes" are, as all aviation writers are fond of telling their editors, actually orange so they can be more readily found in the wreckage. The are usually recovered and most of the time they are of enormous value in solving the puzzle of the crash.

Germantown, Md.: This incident appears to have the same pattern, timing-wise and location wise, as the crash of TWA 800 some years ago. Could this be the same type of fuel tank explosion that brought down that plane?

Douglas B. Feaver: Anything is possible at this time. The coincidences are certain to feed the conspiracy mill, no matter what facts emerge.

Washington, D.C.: What is the frequency that engine failures like this occur? Have there been any other incidents of engine failure since Sept. 11 that did not result in crashes?

Douglas B. Feaver: We don't know yet that this was an engine failure; the fact the engine came off could be an effect of something as well as a cause. There have not been other catastrophic engine incidents since Sept. 11 that I am aware of.

New Orleans, LA: Two questions:

Is there any precedent for accelerating an NTSB investigation, or the way information is released to the public, in the case of a crash that has the potential to dramatically affect the entire commercial aviation system (coming so soon after Sept. 11)?

I recall that the flight recorders only keep something like the last 30 minutes of information -- are they turned on before takeoff and would they therefore have recorded the last 25 minutes of information before takeoff plus the 5 minutes of flight time before the crash?
thanks.

Douglas B. Feaver: The biggest danger to public safety that investigators can make after a plane crash is to get in a hurry. Everybody wants answers immediately, and sometimes an answer becomes apparent early in the investigation. But sometimes it takes months -- the TWA Flight 800 example being the classic. If the safety board finds a safety problem early in its investigaiton, it will make safety recommendations or suggest inspections and improvements will before it includes its work. The FAA is free to implement, modify or ignore safety board recommendations.
The cockpit voice recorder may have some time left from the preceding flight. But it also starts recording before pushback from the gate. Hard to know at this point.

Sarita, Tex.: Migratory birds (ducks and geese) are now moving around. Since the flight crashed shortly after take-off rather than from high altitude, what about birds in the jet intake. Possible?

Douglas B. Feaver: Birds are a problem for aviation, especially large seabirds around airports located close to water. Aircraft engines, such as the ones of this plane, are required during certification to show that they can ingest birds and keep operating. But certification tests are certification tests and reality is reality; they don't always match. That said, I do not recall a major aviation accident that was attributed directly to a bird strike, but I could certainly be wrong about that.

Atlanta, Ga.: What, if any, communication was there between the pilots of Flight 587 and air traffic controllers before the crash?

Douglas B. Feaver: All we know about that is what both Ari Fleisher and Marion Blakely, the safety board chairwoman, have said: that there was no unusual communication between air traffic control and the flight crew.

Ft.Lauderdale, Fla.: Do we have any idea of injuries or deaths on the ground?

Douglas B. Feaver: We don't have any definitive information on that yet.

Dublin, Ireland: Could the age of the plane have been a factor?

Douglas B. Feaver: The plane was in service for about 13 years. That is early middle age at best, and in and of itself should not be an issue.

Washington, D.C.: Have you reduced your air travel plans since Sept. 11?

Douglas B. Feaver: No. I have flown across the country and back once since Sept. 11; the flights were scheduled before then and I saw no reason not to take them after then.

Aiken, S.C.: How can they tell if it was a bomb?

Douglas B. Feaver: There are lots of tests they can run especially since they will apparently be able to recover almost all of the aircraft. Among other things -- if some mechanical issue does not become immediately obvious as the cause -- they can check for traces of known explosives. They can also learn a great deal through examination of the metal on the aircraft and whether it is bent in or out. There are lots of things that could cause an explosion on an aircraft that have nothing to do with bombs, however.

Philadelphia, Pa.: You said that the most critical phases of flight are takeoffs and landings. So does that mean that the safest part of a flight is when the plane has achieved altitude?

Douglas B. Feaver: Yes.

Bethesda, Md.: If this is found to be NOT terrorist related, what happens to AA and can they survive given their current financial condition?

Douglas B. Feaver: It is reasonable to assume that this is not going to be good news for the airline industry generally. Typically, after a highly publicized crash, all carriers suffer for a relatively short period of time; the carrier involved for slightly longer. Only time can tell how this will play for a depressed industry in a time of recession and significant concerns about the safety of travel in general.

Vienna, Va.: Do you feel that the public's quest to know -- and the media's rush to satisfy what they consider to be the public's "right to know" -- all kinds of things can often be counter-productive -- especially in cases such as this where thorough investigation is needed -- not rush to judgment?

Douglas B. Feaver: The time it takes to solve a particular airplane crash is absolutely antithetical to the desires of both news organizations and the public to know what happened, and to know it right now. These kinds of investigations must be careful, must be thorough, and must take time. The safety board has been rigorous through a number of administrations and leaders in sticking to its research and taking the time needed. But the public and the press are also entitled to know what is known as the information becomes available.

That's all the time I have; thank you very much for excellent questions.

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